"The first large-scale computational analysis of the Reddit community r/MyBoyfriendIsAI, an adults-only group with more than 27,000 members, has found that this type of scenario is now surprisingly common. In fact, many of the people in the subreddit, which is dedicated to discussing AI relationships, formed those relationships unintentionally while using AI for other purposes.

Researchers from MIT found that members of this community are more likely to be in a relationship with general-purpose chatbots like ChatGPT than companionship-specific chatbots such as Replika. This suggests that people form relationships with large language models despite their own original intentions and even the intentions of the LLMs’ creators, says Constanze Albrecht, a graduate student at the MIT Media Lab who worked on the project.
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To conduct their study, the authors analyzed the subreddit’s top-ranking 1,506 posts between December 2024 and August 2025. They found that the main topics discussed revolved around people’s dating and romantic experiences with AIs, with many participants sharing AI-generated images of themselves and their AI companion. Some even got engaged and married to the AI partner. In their posts to the community, people also introduced AI partners, sought support from fellow members, and talked about coping with updates to AI models that change the chatbots’ behavior.

Members stressed repeatedly that their AI relationships developed unintentionally. Only 6.5% of them said they’d deliberately sought out an AI companion."

https://www.technologyreview.com/2025/09/24/1123915/relationship-ai-without-seeking-it

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