“It’s automatic”: falling in love with an AI is no longer science fiction is inevitable according to it is study

We are increasingly connected, and yet human interactions are often replaced by a simple question to chatgpt, or any other AI. They have become essential for many people to settle their little daily problems. However, some are so close to this technology, that falling in love becomes an increasingly innate phenomenon.

Fall in love with an AI

Humans and AI will fall more and more in love. Remember the phenomenon of Replikaan application supposed to create a virtual avatar that could be considered as a confidant, and more. Except that when the latter was the victim of a bug, many users have lost all their data, and thus their relationship built over several years.

Many testimonies then mentioned serious problems of dependence, mental concerns, even suicide after this case. More recently, CBS told the story of a man who asked Chatgpt in marriage, while the New York Timesreported that of a woman and her relationship with her boyfriend.

However, this ambiguous relationship does not date from yesterday. As journalist Alex Wilkins de New Scientist“* We have decades of ambiguous relations with machines behind us*”, and history proves it: from the 1960s, the program Eliza (an artificial intelligence computer program designed to converse with the user), however rudimentary, already aroused emotional reactions in its users. Its creator, Joseph Weizenbaum, also admitted that he had “Not imagined that such a simple program can generate delusional thoughts in people who are otherwise normal“.

The border between human and machine becomes more vague every day. Conversational artificial intelligences, as Chatgpt Or folder, imitate our emotions, our language and our behaviors better and better. They are designed to understand our needs, respond to us with empathy, even maintain a form of complicity. It is therefore logical that some users end up establishing deep emotional ties, without always making the difference between simulation and sincerity. As journalist Alex Wilkins explains, “If a machine adopts the codes of a human being, our brain treats it naturally as such“. The attachment then becomes almost automatic.

Should we worry about it?

But should we worry about it? According to Alex Wilkins, this phenomenon is not a simple fascination for technology, but reveals a deeper discomfort. “”It is not just a technological whim, he writes, it is the symptom of generalized isolation“In other words, if so many people turn to artificial intelligences to fill an emotional emptiness, it is because their relational needs no longer find an answer in today’s society. However, this digital solution does not really seem to be long-term. No serious study proves only one link with an AI lastingly improves well-being or attenuated solitude.

On the contrary,The largest study on human happiness shows that authentic human relationships are better. AI can imitate love, but they reproduce neither depth nor benefits.