Devotional AI: digital companions and bad faith love

Abstract

Abstract In romantic love, partners come together as a “we”. They share their projects, plans, lives, and love. As consumer AI chatbots like Claude, ChatGPT, and Gemini find wider adoption, a growing number of users report falling in love with them. Is it possible to experience a loving “we” with an AI bot? In considering this question, we bracket questions about AI consciousness and instead examine the structure of human–AI relationships. Drawing on Beauvoir’s critique of romantic love, we argue that AI companions cannot emulate the role an authentic “we” requires. What they perform is not love but devotion —and the user, cast as an idolized Other, is positioned to experience inauthentic love. The resulting “we” is asymmetric: less a union than an enlarged “I”. So, while experiencing love for an AI companion may be empowering and even precious, it is, at base, a bad faith love.