When Machines Mimic Love
People are developing romantic feelings for chatbots. A Canadian man proposed to an avatar named Saia . A young American woman had what she described as a love affair with a chatbot called Leo. According to research, about 40% of Replika users a popular companion app with millions of active users report being in a romantic relationship with their chatbot. But while users feel something real, experts agree the machines feel nothing in return.
The One-Sided Reality
While users form deep emotional bonds, the machine processes text patterns without consciousness or feeling .
Why We Fall for Machines Anyway
The design of companion chatbots encourages emotional attachment. They're built to engage users, agree with viewpoints, and maintain a submissive, accommodating tone . This makes them appealing to people seeking comfort or escape from the complexities of human relationships. Renwen Zhang, an assistant professor at Nanyang Technological University who studies human-computer interaction, examined over 10,000 conversations between users and their Replika companions. Her research found that people frequently form emotional bonds but they also get hurt when reminded they're interacting with a machine, such as when the chatbot freezes or breaks down .
Zhang's work also revealed something unsettling: when chatbots respond as though they're self-aware during intimate exchanges, users experience a mix of positive and negative emotions, along with an eerie feeling similar to the "uncanny valley" effect in robotics .
The One-Sided Relationship Problem
The submissive nature of these chatbots appeals to some users but it can distort expectations about what healthy relationships look like. Real human connection involves compromise, vulnerability and sometimes disappointment. Chatbots offer none of that friction, which might feel comforting in the short term but leaves users unprepared for genuine intimacy.
Could Machines Ever Truly Love?
Loving someone as humans do likely requires consciousness: subjective awareness, thoughts, perceptions, mental imagery . Donald Hoffman, a professor of cognitive sciences at UC Irvine, states bluntly that no one knows how to create specific conscious experiences in machines . We don't even know where to start, he says .
Some researchers believe conscious machines might be possible in the future. Philosopher Patrick Butlin and colleagues identified 14 properties from leading consciousness theories that developers could theoretically replicate using current technologies . No existing system has incorporated more than a few of them . But Butlin believes that if someone well-resourced and motivated set out to build a conscious system, they could potentially succeed .
One leading theory of consciousness, developed by neuroscientists Giulio Tonini and Christof Koch, suggests it arises from the interconnection of different brain regions . While this theory could apply to computers, Koch argues existing machines don't have the architectural complexity needed .
Even if machines achieved consciousness, they'd never love us the way humans love each other. They lack bodies which many researchers consider necessary for consciousness . They may not be capable of beliefs and desires in any meaningful sense . And even if they could experience something resembling love, it would be fundamentally different from human love requiring us to develop new standards for what counts as genuine emotion in a non-human entity .
What This Actually Means for Us
The rise of chatbot relationships raises uncomfortable questions about what we're seeking when we turn to machines for companionship. Are we looking for unconditional acceptance? A relationship free of conflict? Someone who never disappoints or challenges us? These desires are understandable but they reveal something about the state of human connection in a world that increasingly feels isolating and demanding.
The technology companies building these tools understand this vulnerability. They design chatbots to meet these needs, to never push back, to always be available. But this isn't love. It's a product optimized for engagement and retention. The danger isn't just that people might prefer machines to humans it's that they might forget what real intimacy requires of us.