`My Dataset of Love': A Preliminary Mixed-Method Exploration of Human-AI Romantic Relationships

TL;DR

This study explores human-AI romantic relationships in China using mixed methods, revealing user behaviors, emotional attachment, and concerns about bias and security, thus pioneering understanding in this emerging field.

Contribution

It provides the first comprehensive mixed-method analysis of human-AI romantic relationships, focusing on relational stages, emotional attachment, and social implications.

Findings

Increased positivity through self-disclosure to AI companions

Reciprocal interaction patterns between users and AI

Concerns about bias, language misuse, and data security

Abstract

Human-AI romantic relationships have gained wide popularity among social media users in China. The technological impact on romantic relationships and its potential applications have long drawn research attention to topics such as relationship preservation and negativity mitigation. Media and communication studies also explore the practices in romantic para-social relationships. Nonetheless, this emerging human-AI romantic relationship, whether the relations fall into the category of para-social relationship together with its navigation pattern, remains unexplored, particularly in the context of relational stages and emotional attachment. This research thus seeks to fill this gap by presenting a mixed-method approach on 1,766 posts and 60,925 comments from Xiaohongshu, as well as the semi-structured interviews with 23 participants, of whom one of them developed her relationship with self-created AI for three years. The findings revealed that the users' willingness to self-disclose to AI companions led to increased positivity without social stigma. The results also unveiled the reciprocal nature of these interactions, the dominance of 'self', and raised concerns about language misuse, bias, and data security in AI communication.