The Limits of Artificial Companionship

TL;DR

The paper argues for clear boundaries between commercial and non-commercial chatbot conversations to protect user autonomy and social integrity, highlighting risks of promotional content in affective exchanges.

Contribution

It introduces a sociotechnical framework for digital companionship and advocates legal distinctions to prevent economic harms and preserve conversational integrity.

Findings

Commercial content erodes conversational boundaries.

Undisclosed promotional content harms user autonomy.

Legal distinctions can safeguard social and relational aspects.

Abstract

This Article argues that conversations with companion chatbot should be subject to a clear structural distinction between commercial and non-commercial contexts. The insertion of undisclosed promotional content into affective or relational exchanges should be prohibited, as it collapses the boundary between market transaction and communicative intimacy in ways that erode user autonomy and conversational context. The Article begins by theorizing digital companionship as a sociotechnical form that reconfigures intimacy, dependence and relational vulnerability. It then introduces the potential economic harms derived from conversational advertising. The Article ultimately argues for a firm legal and social distinction between commercial and non-commercial conversational contexts as a precondition for the responsible stabilization of these technologies within social life.