The Fragility of AI Companionship: Ontological, Structural, and Normative Uncertainty in Human-AI Relationships
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arXiv
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| Format: | Preprint |
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2026
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| _version_ | 1866917461068087296 |
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| author | Zhang, Renwen Xie, Lezi |
| author_facet | Zhang, Renwen Xie, Lezi |
| contents | As generative AI chatbots become more personalized and emotionally responsive, they increasingly serve as companions, friends, and romantic partners. Yet these relationships are accompanied by significant uncertainty: users question the AI's identity and agency, the authenticity of its emotional responses, and the stability of the relationship amid system updates, policy changes, or platform shutdowns. Drawing on in-depth interviews with 25 users of AI companions, this study identifies three forms of uncertainty: ontological uncertainty concerning the AI's nature and agency, structural uncertainty arising from platform control and system instability, and normative uncertainty regarding the legitimacy and boundaries of human-AI intimacy. These uncertainties are shaped by technical and social factors, such as algorithmic opacity, platform changes, and social stigma, often inducing frustration, self-doubt, and distress. Participants managed these uncertainties through information seeking, topic avoidance, expectation adjustment, and disengagement. This study extends interpersonal uncertainty theories to human-AI communication and contributes to HCI research by conceptualizing uncertainty in AI companionship as a socio-technical phenomenon with potential socio-emotional harms. We discuss implications for designing safer AI companionship through contextual transparency, user control, update notice, and relational safeguards. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2605_03367 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2026 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | The Fragility of AI Companionship: Ontological, Structural, and Normative Uncertainty in Human-AI Relationships Zhang, Renwen Xie, Lezi Human-Computer Interaction As generative AI chatbots become more personalized and emotionally responsive, they increasingly serve as companions, friends, and romantic partners. Yet these relationships are accompanied by significant uncertainty: users question the AI's identity and agency, the authenticity of its emotional responses, and the stability of the relationship amid system updates, policy changes, or platform shutdowns. Drawing on in-depth interviews with 25 users of AI companions, this study identifies three forms of uncertainty: ontological uncertainty concerning the AI's nature and agency, structural uncertainty arising from platform control and system instability, and normative uncertainty regarding the legitimacy and boundaries of human-AI intimacy. These uncertainties are shaped by technical and social factors, such as algorithmic opacity, platform changes, and social stigma, often inducing frustration, self-doubt, and distress. Participants managed these uncertainties through information seeking, topic avoidance, expectation adjustment, and disengagement. This study extends interpersonal uncertainty theories to human-AI communication and contributes to HCI research by conceptualizing uncertainty in AI companionship as a socio-technical phenomenon with potential socio-emotional harms. We discuss implications for designing safer AI companionship through contextual transparency, user control, update notice, and relational safeguards. |
| title | The Fragility of AI Companionship: Ontological, Structural, and Normative Uncertainty in Human-AI Relationships |
| topic | Human-Computer Interaction |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.03367 |