Friend or phone: AI chatbots could emotionally exploit us

Chatty AI tools need safeguards to prevent emotional attachments

- PARMY OLSON

AI companions programmed to forge emotional bonds are no longer confined to movie scripts. They are here, operating in a regulatory Wild West. One app, Botify AI, recently drew scrutiny for featuring avatars of young actors sharing "hot photos" in sexually charged chats. The dating app Grindr, meanwhile, is developing AI boyfriends that can flirt, sext and maintain digital relationships with paid users, according to Platformer. Grindr didn't respond to a request for comment.

Other apps like Replika, Talkie and Chai are designed to function as friends. Some, like Character.ai, draw in millions of users, many of them teenagers.

As creators increasingly prioritize "emotional engagement" in their apps, they must also confront the risks of building systems that mimic intimacy and exploit people's vulnerabilities.

The tech behind Botify and Grindr comes from Ex-Human, a San Francisco-based startup that builds chatbot platforms, and its founder believes in a future filled with AI relationships. "My vision is that by 2030, our interactions with digital humans will become more frequent than those with organic humans," Artem Rodichev, the founder of Ex-Human, said in an interview published on Substack last August.