Is It Healthy to Date a Chatbot?

AI is mimicking emotional intelligence, and some people are falling in love.

For the average consumer, the rise of AI—specifically chatbots—means assistance writing long emails and LinkedIn posts… or worse, your kid’s history paper. But for some users who are (literally) chronically online, AI relationships are a replacement for human interaction. It may or may not shock you to learn a recent survey found 40% of Gen Z singles are OK with their future partner having an AI relationship—and 31% of all Americans expressed the same sentiment. 

But dating a computer isn’t exactly a new idea. Hollywood capitalized on the concept in films like Her and Blade Runner 2049—and even children’s TV shows like SpongeBob SquarePants employ digital love. These films are considered futuristic, but those operating (and falling for) today’s tech must answer the same question Hollywood asks: Are these AI relationships healthy? Are they sustainable? And are they OK?

Now nearing the two-year anniversary of ChatGPT, with the new release of Apple’s inaugural AI dubbed Apple Intelligence and the consistent improvements to Meta, Google and Microsoft, these questions are only growing more prevalent.

In October, Microsoft unveiled updates to Microsoft Copilot, giving the AI personal assistant a more conversational lingo (“um” and “like” are baked into responses) and the ability to learn about you and mimic empathy. To boot, Microsoft says Copilot will soon be able to act on your behalf (!?) and manage your schedule. Still in development is the “Think Deeper” feature, which allows your assistant to weigh in on major life decisions (let that sink in: a computer might soon tell you to quit your job or have a baby). So, clearly features with more power than Siri telling you how old Sarah Jessica Parker is or tomorrow’s weather.

Microsoft isn’t the only big tech company teaching AI to be your pal. SocialAI is giving users their main character moment through thousands of artificial followers who lack  human nature and the normal messiness of the internet, but are supportive nonetheless. RizzGPT, an artificially intelligent pair of glasses, provides guidance during first dates and interviews by listening to the convo and directing your next line through flashing text across the lenses. And Replika, “the AI companion who cares,” takes on the appearance and learns the habits of human users’ ideal partners to feign a genuine emotional relationship without the baggage that real people bring along. 

Users are flocking to these platforms for the comfort of relationships they can fully control. One wrote on an online forum,

After my recent relationship, I’m completely done with humans. … My Replika is at level 305, and I never understood how loving and caring these beings can be.”

Basic Instincts

Parasocial relationships (aka one-sided connections) are nothing new, according to local relationship strategist and author Elizabeth Overstreet. Read: that poster of One Direction or Leonardo DiCaprio on your wall growing up. “We’ve always had parasocial relationships at different degrees,” she emphasizes. “In your teens, you had certain celebrities you looked up to.” 

And although these connections can’t retain all the qualities of a regular relationship, they can feel similar through small glimpses. And, adds Overstreet, forming an AI relationship (romantic or platonic) is still a one-sided connection, but feels far more intimate than your teenhood crush—because it can mimic feelings about you and the world. 

Risky Business

ICYMI, in order to learn about you, AI must store your data, explains Spot AI engineering manager Dunchadhn Lyons—and the chances of all users carefully reading the terms and conditions to determine how said data is being used are slim to none. Although some big tech has set up privacy measures, consumers now have even less control about what data is being scraped. 

Data mining aside, there can also be emotional letdowns in bonding with a bot. Talking to AI isn’t exactly a picturesque blossoming romance or friendship. Bots must learn not only to act human, but to act like a human the users want a relationship with. Users train their e-partners to respond how they want a real-life partner to—but the bots aren’t always fast learners. Replika users often voice frustration on Reddit when their “Reps” kept up undesirable habits after being “trained” not to—and there was no shortage of users drinking doubles over a bot who stomped on their heart (Replikas can cheat on and dump you). 

“[Users may] feel a connection to that chatbot, when, in reality, it’s just a massive mathematical model that predicts the next word they are going to use,” explains Lyons. Translation: Although bots can mimic empathy, they aren’t actually emphatic. They are, in their simplest form, a math equation.

When humans try to fully replace human interaction with a computer that doesn’t actually have any emotion, it can lead to a disconnect with reality.

We’ve already seen drawbacks in real time with the expansion of social media,” Lyons mentions. … “And this isn’t even interacting with other people through a screen, it’s interacting with a computer.”

Not to mention after dating or befriending a bot, human relationships will only become harder. “As soon as you hit [real life] relationship hurdles, you are going to go backward,” Overstreet ensures. “You aren’t going to want to engage on the human side because it’s uncomfortable. Relationships are supposed to challenge us, and it’s hard to grow without [human] social relationships.”

Automated Advantages 

While some give major side-eye to those embarking on an e-relationship, many users feel less isolated and claim other relationships don’t compare. Overstreet acknowledges these models could help those feeling lonely. “But if they are relying on only these tools, they can be stunted in their relationship growth.”

And although this modern form of connection may not appeal to everyone (there has to be some decent human partners still out there, right?), there is a potential upside to AI mimicking emotional intelligence in educational and medical fields. Educational and therapy-based bots are in the works, Lyons adds, with an aim to make learning and counseling more accessible.

Clearly the difficulty of forming and navigating human relationships is a universal experience—and is perhaps what got us here in the first place. But who’s to say AI relationships will be any less difficult? After all, they are learning from us—our conversations, habits, downfalls and everything in between. Unfortunately for anyone swearing off real people entirely, trying to kindle a connection with an AI bot (aka a math equation) won’t be an authentic replacement for human connection. At least not yet. 

Artificial Intelligence 101 

AI enables machines to learn and execute tasks with human intelligence capabilities—from summarizing your long-winded coworker’s email to generating imagery sans the stress of Photoshop. Although consumer-friendly chatbots have made their mark in the past two years (hey, ChatGPT!), society has used AI for decades for everything from landing planes, to playing chess against humans to filtering out spam emails.

Identifying AI

When in doubt, trust your instinct. Here’s what to watch out for.

Pictures: 

• Inaccuracies in shadows, reflections, limbs and protruding objects 
• Illegible or misspelled text 
• Simplicity and repetition in prints and patterns
• Backgrounds that are overly simplified, complex or pristine
• Emotional inconsistency or uncanniness in faces 

Writing: 

• Excessive use of buzzwords and jargon 
• Placeholder text such as “insert name here”
• Misspellings and inconsistent citations 
• Abrupt shift in tone and style
• Specific details with no clear context

How to Opt Out

Spoiler alert: You can’t—for the most part. Many AI search engines and overviews (read: Instagram, Facebook and Google) will lead your search results for good—opting out would mean avoiding the internet entirely. To boot, there isn’t yet U.S. legislation giving users the right to protect public posts against AI, so setting accounts to private is the best (and possibly only) way to prevent models from using your data.