Scientists Just Found Something Dark About People With AI Girlfriends and Boyfriends

Over the past few years, there have been more and more stories — some sad, all strange — about people falling in love (and lust) with so-called AI-companions.

As AI tools grow more sophisticated and gain more mainstream acceptance, so too has interest in these digital paramours increased — but these romantic chatbots may be doing more harm than good to the humans that are so attached to them.

In a new study published in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, researchers from Brigham Young University found not only that enormous numbers of people are engaging with AI companions, but that many of them seem to be more depressed and lonely than those who don't.

Based on an survey that asked 2,989 respondents, the researchers found that nearly one in five people overall — and a full quarter of young adults aged 18 to 29 — had already used a romance-simulating AI chatbot.

Along with that large proportion of Americans who've experimented with AI companions, the BYU researchers also learned that seven percent of the survey respondents admitted to masturbating when chatting with AI companions, and an additional 13 percent copped to watching AI-generated porn. Men were reportedly much more likely to watch AI porn than women, and younger adults were more than twice as likely as older to engage with AI generally — as well as to say they prefer AI over a real human relationship.

Though these technologies, especially AI companions, are marketed to help lonely people feel more connected, BYU relationship researcher and first paper author Brian Willoughby told PsyPost in an interview that he and his colleagues instead found evidence suggesting "links between AI use and depression and loneliness."

"While the direction of this association is unclear," he continued, "we found no evidence that AI use is helping people feel less alone or isolated.”

That's not surprising. Collaborating with MIT earlier this year, OpenAI itself found that highly engaged ChatGPT users tend to be lonelier. And research by Internet Matters earlier this summer found that a staggering 67 percent of children aged nine to 17 are using AI chatbots regularly, with a third saying it "feels like talking to a friend" and 12 percent saying they have no one else to talk to.

At its worst, obsessive use of ChatGPT and simlar bots has been linked to severe mental health breakdowns that psychiatrists are now calling "AI psychosis," and which have resulted in involuntary commitment, suicides, and murder.

Strangely enough, the BYU researchers also found that respondents in committed relationships with other humans were more likely to report using AI companion chatbots, or to seek out AI imagery of attractive people, than their single counterparts, in an intriguing phenomenon that may be considered a new form of infidelity.

Naturally, with self-reported answers like these, the tendency for responses to be skewed — in this case, likely out of shame or embarrassment — is substantial. Still, this study provides a detailed and somewhat uncanny snapshot into how many people are already using AI on sexual and romantic fronts, and offers hints about why they may be using it, too.

More on AI gfs: Couples Retreat for Humans Dating AIs Becomes Skin-Crawlingly Uncomfortable

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