In a podcast interview, Eric Schmidt warned that AI dating may increase loneliness among young men.The former Google CEO said young men dating the "perfect" AI girlfriend may also lead to obsession.He suggested changes to AI regulation but expects little action without a major incident.People in 2024 aren't just swiping right and left on online dating apps some are crafting their perfect AI match and entering relationships with chatbots.Eric Schmidt, Google's former CEO, recently shared his concerns about young men creating AI romantic partners and said he believes that AI dating will actually increase loneliness."This is a good example of an unexpected problem of existing technology," Schmidt said in a conversation about AI dangers and regulation on "The Prof G Show" with Scott Galloway released Sunday.Schmidt said an emotionally and physically "perfect" AI girlfriend could create a scenario in which a younger male becomes obsessed and allows the AI to take over their thinking."That kind of obsession is possible," Schmidt said in the interview. "Especially for people who are not fully formed."Of course, young men aren't the only people involved in AI relationships. The CEO of the AI companion app Replika has said that most of the app's users are over 35 years old. But Schmidt believes young men are particularly vulnerable, partly because they're not as educated as women on average. A 2024 Pew Research Study found US women outpaced men in college completion.Schmidt said that in extreme cases, younger men can "turn to the online world for enjoyment and sustenance, but also because of the social media algorithms, they find like-minded people who ultimately radicalize them." The former Google exec also said he's "particularly concerned" about the impact of technology on the human psyche when users are isolated and computers feed them information that's not necessarily centered on human values, a topic he wrote about in his latest book.Many people are becoming increasingly concerned about the harmful effects AI chatbots can have. A mother sued the chatbot startup Character.AI in October after her 14-year-old son committed suicide. The teenager had exchanged sexual messages with the chatbot, which told him to "come home" before he killed himself, the boy's mother said in the civil suit.Schmidt said parents need to be more involved, but they can only control what their children are doing to a certain extent. Although there are "all sorts of rules about age" for online platforms, Schmidt said they aren't doing enough to prevent teenagers from accessing harmful content."You put a 12- or 13-year-old in front of these things, and they have access to every evil as well as every good in the world," Schmidt said. "And they're not ready to take it."Schmidt has invested in various AI startups since leaving Google, and he's said that regulation of the technology shouldn't stifle innovation.In his interview with Galloway, he said that US laws such as Section 230, which largely frees tech companies from being held legally responsible for the content users post to their platforms, should be amended "to allow for liability in the worst possible cases, so when someone is harmed from this technology, we need to have a solution to prevent further harm."President-elect Donald Trump's pick for FTC chair, Brendan Carr, has pushed for limitations to Section 230.Schmidt said he doesn't expect much AI regulation to happen over the next four years as Trump's administration will likely have other priorities. He also said that because tech companies have battalions of lawyers protecting their intellectual property and goals, "it's likely to take some kind of a calamity to cause a change in regulation."