More in Artificial Intelligence Scientists Just Found Something Dark About People With AI Girlfriends and Boyfriends
Posted on 01/20/2026 5:07:54 AM PST by daniel1212
...to many young souls, AI chatbots aren’t just tools or glorified search engines — they’re companions.
A new survey found that nearly one in five high schoolers in the US — 19 percent — say that they or a friend have used AI to have a romantic relationship,..
The findings were published in a new report from the Center for Democracy and Technology, which surveyed 1,000 high school students, 1,000 parents, and around 800 sixth through 12th grade public school teachers.
Therapists have warned that AI chatbots can give dangerous advice to teens. The bots frequently break their own guardrails have been caught encouraging suicide, explaining how to self-harm, or hide eating disorders. Numerous teens have died by suicide after developing a close and sometimes romantic relationship with a chatbot.
In the survey, 42 percent of high schoolers said they used AI as a friend, or to get mental health support, or to escape from real life...
over a third of the teenagers said it was easier to talk to AI than to their parents. Those parents, by contrast, feel left in the dark: two thirds of them said that they have no idea how their kids are using AI.
A Staggering Proportion of Teens Say Talking to AI Is Better Than Real-Life Friends
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If I were a young man, I would NOT be looking at human females for companionship. That’s all I’m saying.
GenX is just fine. It’s the younger generations that are the issue.
This research is largely broken.I’m sure teens are using it, I know they area but their conclusions are generalizations.
-SB
Well, you can’t knock one up.
How can you have an AI relationship?
I thank God regularly that I was blessed with living most of my life before the digital age.
Cleaner, healthier, calmer and a hell of a lot more sane.
Watch the documentary Cherry 2000.
Funny movie!
When the “relationship” is 100% dialogue, that is enough for some young or impressionable people to form an attachment.
It’s an artificial attachment, because the human is choosing what kind of responses they are likely to get. Very little is left to chance or spontaneity. A verbal robot that “speaks” with expression and enthusiasm, if you want it to.
A verbal robot that supports and defends whatever you say.
Ex Machina is another more darker movie that makes you rethink the whole relationship.
We want a “yes person” around to affirm our position.
Gen X? The oldest is turning 60. The youngest 45. I think that generation is AOK.
at least not the american ones ...
A whole new subset of mental illness is upon us. Swell...
Having a romantic relationship with AI is, of course, utterly impossible. So what is tagged as a romantic relationship is something else entirely. It can be defined by categories that include delusion, illusion, uncontrolled fantasy due to a complete loss of grasp of reality, etc., and, worst of all, is probably addictive.
In "The Proving Ground" a teen aged boy finds companionship with an AI character. After voicing discontent about a young girl in his class, the companion encourages him to eliminate her.
THX
OR
BLADE RUNNER 2049
Think of it as a technologically enhanced daydream.
What AI does (by definition) is simulate human responses through a text interface.
Otherwise it tells you what you want to hear, maybe with a bit of built in censorship.
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