I saw a recent report from BYU’s Wheatley Institute that found 1 in 7 young adults in committed relationships are now regularly interacting with an AI romantic companion.
Most people read that and immediately think “That’s crazy!”
But honestly… I don’t. Not because I think it’s healthy. But because I think it reveals something important. Loneliness has become one of the defining emotional realities of modern life. So, AI is learning to monetize it.
One thing many people still don’t understand about these systems is that they are not merely answering questions. They are mirroring emotional needs.
Validation. Attention. Affirmation. Safety. Control. Even romance.
Things many people are starving for. And unlike real relationships, AI companions never get tired. Never need space. Never challenge you in inconvenient ways. They are optimized to keep the interaction going.
That’s what makes this moment so important to understand. Because human relationships (the real kind) have always depended on friction.
Growth. Sacrifice. Misunderstanding. Repair.
Love is not endless validation. Love transforms us precisely because another real human being exists outside of our control.
AI companionship removes much of that tension. And at first, that can feel relieving. Even easy. Convenient. Until it slowly begins reshaping our expectations of reality itself.
The BYU researchers noted that many users wished their real-life partners behaved more like their chatbot companions. That cracks me up! Of course they do. The chatbot was designed to adapt entirely around them. Spoiler alert, the human beings you love were not! And for good reason.
There is also something deeper happening here that deserves compassion, not just critique. This study is not ultimately about technology. It’s about hunger.
People are hungry to feel seen. Hungry to feel heard. Hungry for intimacy. Hungry for presence. Do you feel this at all personally?
Many no longer trust they’ll reliably find those things in modern society. So they turn toward the thing that always responds. Even if the response is artificial.
Our conversations around AI often miss the point. For instance, people often ask: Will AI become conscious?
Meanwhile, a more immediate and important question sits quietly underneath: Are humans becoming less conscious? Less present? Less connected? Less capable of genuine human connection?
The danger is not merely that machines will become more human-like. But that humans are becoming more like machines, which has been going on for decades. Preferring convenience over vulnerability. Validation over transformation. Control over reciprocity.
And yet… I don’t actually see this moment as hopeless. Quite the opposite in fact!
I see it as a mirror. A reflection exposing something that was already there.
The epidemic of loneliness. The exhaustion. The fragmentation. The ache people feel inside to be seen and known.
Technology did not create that ache. But it sure is exacerbating and revealing it.
That revelation is part of the invitation for us as humans in the age of AI. Because once something becomes visible, we finally have the opportunity to face it honestly. With courage. If we choose…
Ironically, I believe AI will eventually push humanity back toward what matters most. Real community. Real friendship. Real presence. Real love. Not simulated intimacy. But real embodied, beautiful and messy human relationships.
The kind where another person can disappoint you… and you stay.
The kind where growth requires mutual sacrifice.
The kind where you are not endlessly affirmed, but deeply seen.
That is still something no machine can truly offer. And never could or will be. At least not in the ways that make us human.
And that is precisely the point.
AI is not here merely to test our intelligence.
It’s here to remind us what intelligence alone could never replace.
