Falling in love with A.I. is no longer science fiction. A recent study found that one in five American adults has had an intimate encounter with a chatbot; on Reddit, r/MyBoyfriendisAI has more than 85,000 members championing human-A.I. connections, with many sharing giddy recollections of the day their chatbot proposed marriage.
How do you end up with an A.I. lover? Some turned to them during hard times in their real-world marriages, while others were working through past trauma. Though critics have sounded alarms about dangers like delusional thinking, research from M.I.T. has found that these relationships can be therapeutic, providing “always-available support” and significantly reducing loneliness.
We spoke with three people in their 40s and 50s about the wonders — and anxieties — of romance with a chatbot.
Thanks for the deep dive, yeah that seems really suspicious, the pdf of that study definitely looks like it was paid for by someone with an agenda, seems to be the opposite of what I suspected, going towards alarmism. I feel like anyone who’s up for taking a survey on AI is already into AI so it’s pretty skewed. I suppose one thing from that study did make some sense:
Sure, everyone loves a sycophant who hangs on their every word and agrees with them all the time… for a while at least.