It has been seven years since the launch of Replika, an artificial intelligence chatbot designed to be a friend to human users. Despite early warnings about the dangers of such AI friends, interest in friendships and even romantic relationships with AI are on the rise.
Stanford University researchers studied 1,000 lonely Replika-using students, 30 of whom said the AI chatbot had deterred them from committing suicide . The unconditional support of AI friends may also be instrumental to their ability to prevent suicide. But having a friend who is “always on your side” might also have negative effects, particularly if they support obviously dangerous ideas.
Research shows such people tend to have poorer social skills and be more likely to behave in ways that impede positive social interactions.While AI friends could be programmed to be moral mentors, guiding users towards socially acceptable behaviour, they are not. Perhaps such programming is difficult, or perhaps AI friend developers do not see it as a priority.
Even if AI friends are programmed to respond negatively to abuse, if users cannot leave the friendship, they may come to believe that when people say “no” to being abused, they do not really mean it. On a subconscious level, if AI friends come back for more, their behaviour negates their expressed dislike of the abuse in users’ minds.
After experiencing a low-risk, low-reward sexual relationship with an AI friend, many users may be loath to face the more challenging human version of sex.Commercial companies dominate the AI friend marketplace. They may present themselves as caring about their users’ well-being, but they are there to turn a profit.Replika froze user access to sexual content in early 2023 and claimed such content was never the goal of the product.