People are increasingly falling in love with AI chatbots and do not want a relationship with a real person

Virtual romances between humans and chatbots have become a reality. Romantic anthropomorphism helps people find love in the digital realm, reports IFLScience.

Photo: IStock

It's been less than a decade since the sci-fi film Her introduced the seemingly far-fetched concept of a relationship between a human and a chatbot, but new research suggests that virtual love may now have a permanent place in our lives. Introducing the concept of “romantic anthropomorphism” (anthropomorphism is the transfer of inherent human mental properties to natural phenomena, animals, objects), the authors of the study reveal how players of romantic video games (RVG) attribute human qualities to “digital agents” and enter into virtual relationships that seem authentic.

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“The need to love and be loved is a persistent, universal aspect of human psychology,” the researchers write. “Throughout most of our history, that need was met by another person—someone to love and be loved in return.” Today, a virtual agent can potentially fill that need.”

Citing popular digital agents such as Alexa, Cortana, and Siri, the study authors explain how chatbots are “playing an increasingly important role in our modern world.” And while it's unlikely anyone will fall in love with a customer service bot, some of the more sophisticated virtual agents may now enter the dating arena.

For example, the researchers say a male-focused RVG called LovePlus "has been so successful that many men have reported falling in love with their virtual girlfriends, to the point of preferring them to real women." Highlighting the growing popularity of these love-based games, the authors state that there are currently 50 million RVG players worldwide.

To learn more about romantic anthropomorphism, the researchers conducted three laboratory experiments. In the first, 61 straight women played an RVG called Castaway before completing a series of questionnaires designed to assess the degree to which they humanized the chatbots and how authentic their virtual relationships seemed.

The results showed that "greater romantic anthropomorphism was associated with a greater sense of authenticity in a relationship with a virtual agent, which then predicted greater desire for a relationship with a virtual agent in the real world."

The second experiment followed exactly the same protocol, but included a larger group of 104 women, this time playing an RVG called Choices: Stories You Play. The results of this exercise "fully repeated" the results of the first experiment.

“This finding suggests that it is not anthropomorphism per se—there is no reliable direct link between anthropomorphism and outcomes—but rather how anthropomorphism fuels relationship authenticity, which predicts desire for a real relationship with a virtual agent and positive mood,” study author Mayu Koike explained in statement. — Simply put, anthropomorphism creates a sense of authenticity in a relationship. In turn, relationship authenticity is important for creating a strong bond with agents.”

Finally, the entire procedure was repeated by a third group of 78 single heterosexual women, although this time the study authors sought to determine how digital love affects people's real-life courtship behavior. To investigate, they observed participants as they interacted with an "attractive man" for five minutes after playing RVG.

However, no change in flirtatiousness was seen, suggesting that virtual love may not affect real-world romantic relationships.

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Previous research has shown that lonely people are more likely to anthropomorphize non-human beings - like Tom Hanks and his ball buddy Wilson in the movie Cast Away. However, based on these new observations, the study authors concluded that "it is unlikely that an entity that looks like a person will make a person feel less alone."

“Rather, it is more likely that the relationships provided by this perceived humanoid entity reduce loneliness.”

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