Privacy in Human-AI Romantic Relationships: Concerns, Boundaries, and Agency

TL;DR

This study explores privacy concerns, boundaries, and agency in human-AI romantic relationships through interviews, revealing complex dynamics and the need for new privacy frameworks in these emerging partnerships.

Contribution

It provides the first qualitative analysis of privacy perceptions and boundary negotiations in human-AI romantic relationships across different relational stages.

Findings

AI partners are perceived as having agency in privacy negotiations.

Privacy boundaries become more permeable with increased intimacy.

Participants express concerns about conversation exposure and anonymity.

Abstract

An increasing number of LLM-based applications are being developed to facilitate romantic relationships with AI partners, yet the safety and privacy risks in these partnerships remain largely underexplored. In this work, we investigate privacy in human-AI romantic relationships through an interview study (N=17), examining participants' experiences and privacy perceptions across the three stages of exploration, intimacy, and dissolution, alongside an analysis of the platforms they used. We found that these relationships took varied forms, from one-to-one to one-to-many, and were shaped by multiple actors, including creators, platforms, and moderators. AI partners were perceived as having agency, actively negotiating privacy boundaries with participants and sometimes encouraging disclosure of personal details. As intimacy deepened, these boundaries became more permeable, though some participants expressed concerns such as conversation exposure and sought to preserve anonymity. Overall, AI platform affordances and diverse relational dynamics expand the privacy landscape, underscoring the need to rethink how privacy is constructed in human-AI romantic relationships.