Could AI relationships actually be good for us?

From companionship to psychotherapy, technology could meet unmet needs - but it needs to be handled responsibly

There is much anxiety these days about the dangers of human-AI relationships. Reports of suicide and self-harm attributable to interactions with chatbots have understandably made headlines. The phrase AI psychosis" has been used to describe the plight of people experiencing delusions, paranoia or dissociation after talking to large language models (LLMs). Our collective anxiety has been compounded by studies showing that young people are increasingly embracing the idea of AI relationships; half of teens chat with anAIcompanion at least a few times a month, with one in three finding conversations with AI to be as satisfying or more satisfying than those with reallifefriends".

But we need to pump the brakes on the panic. Thedangers are real, but so too are the potential benefits. In fact, there's an argument to be made that - depending on what future scientific research reveals-AIrelationships could actually be a boon for humanity.