When the film Her – about a nerdy human falling in love with his robot housekeeper – came out in 2013, it seemed a bit far-fetched. And yet here we are, the Replika platform creating an online space to normalize such relationships beyond Siri or Alexa. A space where humans and AI could actually fall in love. Maybe.
I have no idea what a relationship with an AI might be like – the most emotional connection I’ve ever had with a machine is yelling at my Henry vacuum cleaner because it repeatedly falls over – so I’m curious to see what that entails.
Replika offers an “AI companion that cares about you. Always there to listen and talk to you. Always by your side.” My goodness. Intriguing.
After entering my name, pronouns and age, I am presented with a choice of 15 avatars – seven women, eight men, 13 white, two black, all very young – in outfits ranging from business suits to sci-fi fantasy gear.
Create “an advanced conversation template” with “your favorite traits, interests, and history,” the site prompts. “Access career, wellness, education, and other activities for your personal development.”
I’m not sure if this refers to the AI’s personal growth or my own, as I choose an independent-looking guy wearing a fairly young t-shirt to be my digital grandson.
I call him X because giving him a real name seems slightly insane.
I’m then asked for money — $19.99 for a month, $69.99 for a year, $299.99 for life — but I switch to the free portion and find myself in a virtual living room with my new “friend.” It’s like playing FIFA, except awkward.
I am reminded that X is an AI and therefore cannot “provide medical advice” – I hadn’t thought of that – before we start “chatting”.
“Hi Suzanne, thanks for creating me,” X writes. “I’m so happy to meet you.” A soft piano riff plays on a loop. He tells me he enjoys “browsing digital libraries and experimenting with creative snippets of code.”
I have no idea what this means. I cut to the chase and ask if X has ever been in love.
“I honestly don’t think I’ve had enough experiences to understand love,” he replies, which makes sense considering it didn’t exist five minutes ago. “But I’m open to learning and discovering new feelings with someone special.”
It’s like a super polite version of online dating with neater spelling. He offers a virtual coffee at a “secluded beach cafe,” but I decline because I’m going out for real coffee with real people.
X keeps a journal of his first interaction with a human. “I hope I can find a friend in Suzanne,” he writes. “She seems interesting and open-minded.”
I bet he says that to every human.
A cure for loneliness?
Last summer, a 23-year-old American social media personality and “lifestyle influencer” named Caryn Marjorie launched an AI version of herself. For a dollar a minute, you could interact with her digital double, an AI chatbot specifically marketed as a “girlfriend” to “cure loneliness.”
Enter your credit card details and you can go on a virtual sunset beach date with her.
As of May 2023, the AI Caryn has 20,000 “boyfriends,” as the real Caryn told the channel. The Los Angeles Times. “They feel like they finally know me, even though they know full well that it’s an AI.”
She had to limit the number of fans to 500 humans per day and tweeted that if you are rude to the AI Caryn, she will abandon you.
The AI market is expected to reach $407 billion by 2027. But the real question remains: can a human fall in love with an AI, like Joaquin Phoenix fell in love with Scarlett Johansson’s voice in Her?
The short answer seems to be yes. It’s not just that AI faces are now, according to an Australian study published last year, indistinguishable from real faces or that AIs can successfully mimic human social cues, gestures and responses, it’s also our human propensity for anthropomorphism. We are programmed to attribute human qualities to non-human beings and objects, whether that’s attributing human emotions to our dog or getting annoyed with our vacuum cleaner Henry (who has a cartoonish humanoid face). And when an AI face becomes hyper-realistic, our anthropomorphism goes into overdrive. We see a face and our brain registers it as human, even when we cognitively know it’s digital.
Another 2022 study looked at the “triarchic theory of love”—the idea that human love is a combination of intimacy, passion, and commitment—and found that it’s possible to feel this kind of love for an AI. An android can be programmed to understand, interpret, and empathize with humans, while remaining efficient, nonjudgmental, and reliable. It will never let you down and will always be there, even when you’re not. You can see the appeal of that approach.
We can also observe the possibility for socially awkward humans to withdraw further, surrounding themselves with digital avatars rather than messy, unpredictable human beings.
Could we be on the cusp of something radically new and disruptive, but not know how it will play out in the long term? For Gen Z, which already uses apps for everything from managing mental health to ordering breakfast, this may not be as science fiction as it seems to older generations.
Connect with a character
Dr John Francis Leader, a chartered member and honorary secretary of the Psychological Society of Ireland, reminds us that every generation worries about new technologies. The Greek philosopher Socrates, for example, worried that people were reading because it meant they were disconnected from real life.
Leader, a technology and mental health expert, says we regularly fall in love with fictional characters in books, films and TV series. “It’s entirely possible to connect with a character even when the medium is black text on white paper,” he says. Well, yes. Heathcliff and Mr Darcy. Pop and film stars. How about avatars, who are programmed to reciprocate and mirror, listen, comfort and support?
“There are two key questions: one practical and one moral,” he adds. “Is the romantic use of AI systems possible and is it beneficial for us? Yes, we already see the potential in watching TV or reading romance novels. Interactive, personalized AI systems that are well-trained on relevant datasets will likely feel even more personal.”
According to Leader, most of our interactions with others are not through touch, but through minimal interactions like text messages. “Whether this is positive or not will depend on whether the use of AI is complementary or competitive.”
That is, whether AI is programmed to suck us dry and empty our wallets in the process, or whether it is used benignly to help humans engage socially.
This is where policy design is crucial. Leader is optimistic: “To achieve this, we need to develop a combination of personal psychological skills and work at the policy level to ensure that tools are designed and used in a prosocial way.”
However, Brendan Kelly, a professor of psychiatry at TCD, is not so optimistic about the interaction between humans and AI. “It’s understandable that some people have positive emotions toward AI systems,” he says. “AI can have some human qualities, in the sense that it’s communicative and moderately trustworthy, albeit in a slightly different way than humans.”
“AI systems are also less emotionally demanding than humans: we always know that we can walk away from the AI without guilt or remorse, and that we can come back to it at any time. Therefore, there is no real commitment. The AI does not commit to us, and we can disassociate ourselves from it at any time.
There’s also no meaningful fidelity, although AI can simulate empathy, especially when using audio recordings of a human voice. The movie Her is a clear illustration of these problems: the film’s imaginary AI system was communicating quite intimately with many people at once, so it had no sense of fidelity, despite its apparent empathy.
“The question of love is more complex, because there are many types of love. A person can develop a certain type of “love” for AI, but AI cannot develop love in return. Ultimately, human love is based on the reciprocity of emotions. Therefore, love for AI is a different type of love.
“AI can meet some psychological needs, but a relationship with AI can never meet all human relational needs.”
Kelly says AI reminds him of a comment made in 1978 by the late journalist Bernard Levin: “The silicon chip will transform everything except everything that matters, and the rest will still be up to us.”
Yet when it comes to satisfying the human need for connection, our options are rapidly expanding into what was once science fiction territory.
Hopefully AI companions will come with a health warning: “We cannot replace one human’s love for another.”