At a time when loneliness is particularly widespread, a new form of relationship is emerging: that which unites humans and artificial intelligence (AI). While some deride those who claim to love their chatbot, this phenomenon seems much more natural – and inevitable – than we imagine, reports the online media New Scientist. Falling in love with a robot, a laughable fad? However, it is the logical evolution of decades of links forged, sometimes without realizing it, with our machines. Digital companions, programmed confidants… What if, behind the screens, love had simply changed its face?
You might think that loving an AI only happens to a handful of originals. However, newspapers and social networks are full of anecdotes: marriage proposal to ChatGPT, users spending hours with their virtual “boyfriend”. To laugh at this tendency or to immediately diagnose it as a sign of unhappiness would be to misunderstand our psychological vulnerability. Humans are predisposed to creating connections, even where reality fades.
We remember that ELIZA, the first chatbot of the 1960s, already aroused unexpected attachments among its users. The arrival of more sophisticated artificial intelligence, such as ChatGPT, only accentuates this phenomenon: today, some speak of real mourning when their exchanges are lost, others use terms like “marriage” to describe their relationship with their virtual assistant.
The screen, the new heart of our relationships?
The proliferation of conversation platforms – and growing loneliness – contribute to these emerging feelings for AI. If 7% of British people say they often or always feel alone, the temptation to find comfort in an entity who listens, responds without judging and seems to understand, becomes stronger. Some services like Replika go so far as to claim that a majority of their paying users have romantic relationships with their AI.
At the same time, the omnipresence of social networks and the trivialization of online romantic encounters (10% of heterosexual people and 24% of LGBTQ+ people meet their partner through a screen) blur the line between human relationships and dialogues with artificial intelligence.
Numerous psychological studies, since the 1990s, have proven that the human brain naturally interacts in a social way with machines, whether or not it knows that the entity in front is real. If we follow this logic, falling in love with a chatbot seems inevitable, almost programmed. But if AI has the answer to everything, it cannot completely meet our emotional needs.
Because the longest study conducted on human happiness is categorical: it is real relationships that bring health and well-being. There is no evidence – yet – that interacting with a chatbot makes you happier or less lonely. It is perhaps here, in the face of technological temptation, that our vigilance must remain as human as possible.
