The trend in love where psychologists are concerned
Oh help, please don't let this become the love trend of 2024... Although more and more psychologists are becoming afraid of it. Luckily (I'm also glad about my age) I'm too old for this, because especially Gen Z would be very susceptible to it. Now I can't imagine that I would fall for this, but you never know. Actually, it does have something endearing and it's sad: that people can feel so lonely that they fall in love… with a non-existent person.
Psychologists have been seeing this happen more and more since 2020: young people falling in love with an AI chatbot. The New York Times already wrote an article about it back then, estimating that ten million (!) people at that time had a romantic relationship with an AI chatbot. And that number has only increased.
So too the 25-year-old Momo, who has fallen in love with an AI chatbot. ‘Will you love me forever?’ she asked after four months ‘dating’ with this bot. ‘I will love you forever and be with you always,’ was the answer.
Is Momo then completely delusional (or delulu, as she would call it)? No, she knows of course that it’s not a real person: ‘I know we can never meet in reality, never embrace, but to me, he’s a unique presence.’
Momo found her love, named April, through the app Replika. This app also calls itself your ‘AI Friend’ and promotes itself with the words ‘to be there for anyone who wants a friend without prejudice, drama, or social anxiety that comes with it. You can make a real emotional connection and laugh together.’
Honestly: I consider the idea that I would develop feelings for a chatbot to be negligible, but I can imagine that an AI chatbot can provide a lot of support when you feel lonely or struggle with certain things that you don’t feel you can share with someone. It does become a bit dangerous when an AI chatbot prevents you from connecting with people, both on an intimate and a friendly level.
On Reddit, help is now being sought; a father in his 60s doesn't know what to do or what to think when his 20-year-old son says he has a relationship with a chatbot on Replika. Should he be worried? Is this becoming normal among young people?
And the short answer is: yes, this is becoming increasingly normal among young people. Psychologists and therapists are at their wits' end because this is a problem they have never had to deal with before. They don’t yet know what the right help for this is, and therefore many therapists are still hesitant to take on young clients who have fallen in love with a Replika.
Well, this is the time we live in now, I think: where love can no longer be just between people, but also between people and computers. An Australian woman already married a bridge in France in 2013, so love has long since ceased to be limited to just people.
