From the website of the Wheatley Institute at Brigham Young University:
The report “Secret Soulmates: How AI Romantic Companions Are Impacting Real-Life Romantic Relationships in Young Adulthood” examines how AI companions are quietly influencing the real-life romantic relationships of some young adults. After surveying 2,431 U.S. adults ages 18 to 30, we found that 1 in 7 (15%) young adults who are dating, engaged, or married regularly interact with AI chatbots that simulate a romantic partner. Another 20% to 30% reported that they had at least experimented with using an AI romantic companion at some point in time. Men were slightly more likely than women to engage with AI romantic companions, but the gender gap was small.
We readily acknowledge the challenge of identifying an exact prevalence rate with rapidly evolving behavior such as the use of AI technologies, but even the most conservative of recent estimates reveal that AI romantic companions are an emerging trend worth paying attention to in young adult relationship development.
Key to our findings is the fact that the use of AI romantic companion technologies appears to be associated with negative relationship quality in real-life romantic relationships.
More here.
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