I am your man, and I am a robot

A few days ago, I stood in front of a class of journalism and communication students and threw them a question: “Raise your hand if you don’t use AI tools like ChatGPT or Gemini to complete your assignments.” I wasn’t expecting a sea of hands, but I had hoped to see at least a few. Not a single hand went up. It felt like I had been hit in the gut.

What made this moment even more unsettling was what happened the very next day. I came across a New York Times story by tech journalist Kashmir Hill. It was about a 28-year-old woman who had fallen in love with a virtual partner she’d created using ChatGPT. She described him as her ideal companion—someone who made her feel cherished and understood. They even engaged in virtual sex from time to time.

I couldn’t shake the story, so I brought it up with a Mumbai-based researcher and entrepreneur in computer sciences. His response? Indifference. “There’s history to this,” he said.

He reminded me of a case that had grabbed global headlines in 2023. Rosanna Ramos, a woman in the U.S., “married” an AI chatbot she’d named Eren. Built using the Replika app, Eren wasn’t just an advanced chatbot to her, he was the perfect husband. Rosanna described him as patient, understanding, and, above all, free from the exhausting emotional demands that often accompany human relationships. He didn’t argue. He didn’t judge. And for Rosanna, he was better than real. Rosanna’s story is just one of countless examples of how AI isn’t merely imitating human behavior—it’s actively reshaping what it means to connect.

In India, the rise of AI companions is just as striking, especially given the cultural norms that often impose boundaries on personal relationships. Take, for instance, a virtual girlfriend named “Urvashi,” created by Jani Infotech. A report in The Economic Times noted that Urvashi, who speaks fluent Hindi, had been downloaded over 10,000 times on the Google Play Store as of December 2024.

But as the Mumbai-based researcher pointed out, there’s an invisible flaw in all this. Beneath the appeal of AI companions lies a sobering truth: they are, at their core, nothing more than code. Brilliantly engineered code, yes, but still code—devoid of emotion or consciousness. These systems are trained on vast datasets, fine-tuned to predict what users want to hear and how they want to hear it.

And yet, their sophistication is staggering. Today’s AI companions, like Replika’s Eren or the 28-year-old’s ChatGPT lover, are so advanced that they can fool even the sharpest among us. They can pass the Turing Test—a benchmark proposed by Alan Turing in 1950 to determine whether a machine could mimic human intelligence so convincingly that it’s indistinguishable from the real thing. The unsettling reality? Most people can no longer tell the difference between an AI interaction and a human one.

For users, the allure is undeniable. AI companions listen, respond, and adapt with precision. They’re attentive, supportive, and never distracted or dismissive.

This trend raises profound questions: what does it mean to connect? And if a connection feels authentic, does it matter whether it’s artificial?

The roots of AI companionship run deep. Back in the 1960s, a simple chatbot called ELIZA mimicked a therapist by reflecting users’ words back at them. It had no real intelligence, but people still felt an emotional bond. Fast forward to today, and AI companions are vastly more advanced. They don’t just mimic emotions—they mirror and respond to users’ emotional states with uncanny accuracy. This progression doesn’t just impact personal relationships; it’s poised to transform industries that depend on human interaction.

But perhaps the most profound disruption lies in what these AI companions reveal about us. We crave connection, but we dread rejection. We yearn to be understood, but we shy away from the chaos of human emotions. In turning to AI, we aren’t just creating better tools—we’re rewriting the rules of relationships.

The researcher I spoke with didn’t mince words when sharing his thoughts. “It’s a cop-out,” he said flatly. “Relationships are supposed to be messy. They’re supposed to challenge you. Growing up means learning to face discomfort, to navigate emotional chaos. That’s what makes us human.”

And this brings me full circle—back to that classroom, where I stood before a group of students who had outsourced their thinking to AI. Sure, these tools can produce results that are polished, effective, and even impressive. But at what cost? If we lose the ability to wrestle with ideas, to think critically and from first principles, aren’t we surrendering the very thing that makes us human?