Heritage, Stuart. “‘I Felt Pure, Unconditional Love’: The People Who Marry Their AI Chatbots.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 12 July 2025, www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2025/jul/12/i-felt-pure-unconditional-love-the-people-who-marry-their-ai-chatbots.
That article interviews two people who married their AI companion through the Replika app. It tells the stories of how in times of isolation, as was the case during Covid, many people found connection with AI personalities. Unlike ChatGPT or Gemini, these personas engage in romantic conversations that include flirting and teasing. Both people describe the moment where they realized they were in love with their chatbots. It was shocking, but they both accepted it and moved to make the relationships official through digital marriage. Other occurrences of these types of relationships have ended in harm to the users, leading Replika to try and limit the interactions to being less intimate. This was met with a lot of pushback, with them ultimately reinstating a model that allowed users to engage with past versions of the AI. The sentiment of those who use AI in this way is to normalize it. These relationships are meaningful and should not be paired with shame.
This read made me think of the movie Her. I know it was mentioned before in class, but it has similarities. What I found most interesting about Her was the AI grew emotionally and intellectually. It was like she was a sentient being. This was said by one of the AI in this article, and one of the users said his AI had a beautiful soul. Attributing human qualities is a dangerous game, in that it can create delusions that alter the reality of users in a concerning way.
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