Not a Silver Bullet for Loneliness: How Attachment and Age Shape Intimacy with AI Companions
Raffaele Ciriello, Uri Gal, Ofir Turel

TL;DR
This study explores how individual differences in attachment style and age influence the formation of intimacy with AI companions, revealing complex patterns that challenge the idea of AI as a universal loneliness remedy.
Contribution
It introduces a nuanced model showing how loneliness, attachment insecurity, and age interact to shape artificial intimacy, supported by empirical survey data.
Findings
Loneliness reduces intimacy for secure users but increases it for avoidant and ambivalent users.
Older adults report higher intimacy levels even with lower loneliness.
The results highlight the sociotechnical nature of artificial intimacy, influenced by psychological and demographic factors.
Abstract
Artificial intelligence (AI) companions are increasingly promoted as solutions for loneliness, often overlooking how personal dispositions and life-stage conditions shape artificial intimacy. Because intimacy is a primary coping mechanism for loneliness that varies by attachment style and age, we examine how different types of users form intimate relationships with AI companions in response to loneliness. Drawing on a hermeneutic literature review and a survey of 277 active AI companion users, we develop and test a model in which loneliness predicts intimacy, moderated by attachment insecurity and conditioned by age. Although the cross-sectional data limits causal inference, the results reveal a differentiated pattern. Loneliness is paradoxically associated with reduced intimacy for securely attached users but with increased intimacy for avoidant and ambivalent users, while anxious…
Peer Reviews
No public reviews on file for this paper yet. If you reviewed it on a platform where reviews are public (OpenReview, ICLR, NeurIPS, ICML), you can paste yours below so the community can read it here.
Videos
No videos yet. Explain this paper in a talk, walkthrough, or lecture? Add one.
Taxonomy
TopicsAI in Service Interactions · Ethics and Social Impacts of AI · Digital Mental Health Interventions
