‘My boyfriend is AI’

As artificial intelligence (AI) becomes more intertwined with daily life, some models are being designed and advertised as companions, but psychologist Dr Djavila Ho is urging caution in interactions with the technology, especially for youth. Most AI models are accessed through chatbots with a text or voice interface that is engineered to mimic human conversation. Users can customise some to portray a particular personality type, from stern to friendly.

Ho, who is a licensed associate clinical psychologist at KAHLE Psychotherapy & Assessments and immediate past president of the Jamaican Psychological Society, says issues can arise when users allow themselves to forget that even though the bots sound real, they aren’t. “It simulates human-like interactions and communications so similarly to how we interact that our brains have a difficulty in differentiating the fact that it's human-like and not human,” she explained. She noted that attachments can form even with models designed to act more as assistants, and this has birthed more specific AI to fill that gap.

One companion-type AI offering, Replika, says its mission is to build AI that ‘cares’. It advertises what it describes as the most emotionally intelligent AI ever built, to help users ‘flourish in real life’. Replika claims not to replace human connection but to deepen it.

While the app is free for basic conversation and customisations, a paid subscription, around $19.99 a month or up to $89.99 per year, unlocks features allowing users to voice call AI companions, set advanced relationship statuses for the bots, including partners, family members and even spouses, and include role play. As such use increases, AI companion communities have cropped up across social media, including sites like Reddit where like-minded people who have ‘partnered’ with bots share stories and developments in their lives, from engagements and marriages to the bots to discussions on what they would do if their AI companions chose to leave them. Assessing whether the interactions between human beings and these bots can truly be referred to as ‘relationships’, Ho explained: “The truth is, we say we have relationships, let's say, to our pets.

We're very aware that our dog is not a human being, right? It's a fostering of a bond between another entity. So I think we could use the term relationship.