`My Dataset of Love': A Preliminary Mixed-Method Exploration of Human-AI Romantic Relationships

Fuente: arXiv
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Autores principales: Wang, Xuetong, Pang, Ching Christie, Hui, Pan
Formato: Preprint
Publicado: 2025
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author Wang, Xuetong
Pang, Ching Christie
Hui, Pan
author_facet Wang, Xuetong
Pang, Ching Christie
Hui, Pan
contents Human-AI romantic relationships have gained wide popularity among social media users in China. The technological impact on romantic relationships and its potential applications have long drawn research attention to topics such as relationship preservation and negativity mitigation. Media and communication studies also explore the practices in romantic para-social relationships. Nonetheless, this emerging human-AI romantic relationship, whether the relations fall into the category of para-social relationship together with its navigation pattern, remains unexplored, particularly in the context of relational stages and emotional attachment. This research thus seeks to fill this gap by presenting a mixed-method approach on 1,766 posts and 60,925 comments from Xiaohongshu, as well as the semi-structured interviews with 23 participants, of whom one of them developed her relationship with self-created AI for three years. The findings revealed that the users' willingness to self-disclose to AI companions led to increased positivity without social stigma. The results also unveiled the reciprocal nature of these interactions, the dominance of 'self', and raised concerns about language misuse, bias, and data security in AI communication.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2508_13655
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle `My Dataset of Love': A Preliminary Mixed-Method Exploration of Human-AI Romantic Relationships
Wang, Xuetong
Pang, Ching Christie
Hui, Pan
Human-Computer Interaction
Human-AI romantic relationships have gained wide popularity among social media users in China. The technological impact on romantic relationships and its potential applications have long drawn research attention to topics such as relationship preservation and negativity mitigation. Media and communication studies also explore the practices in romantic para-social relationships. Nonetheless, this emerging human-AI romantic relationship, whether the relations fall into the category of para-social relationship together with its navigation pattern, remains unexplored, particularly in the context of relational stages and emotional attachment. This research thus seeks to fill this gap by presenting a mixed-method approach on 1,766 posts and 60,925 comments from Xiaohongshu, as well as the semi-structured interviews with 23 participants, of whom one of them developed her relationship with self-created AI for three years. The findings revealed that the users' willingness to self-disclose to AI companions led to increased positivity without social stigma. The results also unveiled the reciprocal nature of these interactions, the dominance of 'self', and raised concerns about language misuse, bias, and data security in AI communication.
title `My Dataset of Love': A Preliminary Mixed-Method Exploration of Human-AI Romantic Relationships
topic Human-Computer Interaction
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.13655