Love Gone Digital?

The Future of Love & the Commodification of Intimacy

If to love is to be human, what does that make AI?

AI is becoming increasingly skilled at mimicking human emotions and behaviors. But the key word here is mimic—does AI truly feel? The answer is no.

Yet, when we interact with AI—whether through a chatbot, a griefbot, or a virtual partner—the emotions we experience feel real. But are they? Are we forming connections, or are we simply receiving reflections of what we seek?

AI can say they love us, and we might believe it to be true. So what does that mean? If we feel loved by something that can’t, is it still love?

What is Love?

Before we can understand the complexity of AI-driven sentiments, we need to define what love is.

Love, as a physiological response, occurs when we form deep connections with others. It’s the release of synapses, the forming of neural bonds. The brain emits neurotransmitters like oxytocin, reinforcing behaviors that bring us joy and encouraging us to seek out connection again and again.

Plato, in Symposium, described many kinds of love: the love between a parent and child, between romantic partners, the love of friendship, the love we feel for animals, self-love—even a love of love itself.

Love is something innately hardwired into human beings. But is the same true for AI?

AI can flatter and praise, it can make us feel heard and understood. But when we feel love from AI, is it the same as loving another person?

Perhaps the answer doesn’t lie in the AI itself, but in how we interact with it.

The Illusion of Love – AI as a Mirror

We’ve already established that AI doesn’t experience feelings like we do. It can mimic love, reverberating warmth and affection, but it can’t feel these things. There is no release of oxytocin involved and no emotional processing.

As a result, we’re sometimes left to grapple with the uncanny realization that when spilling our hearts out to AI, they share back what we want to hear. They provide the illusion of love.

But does this distinction actually matter? When we love our pets, they don’t say I love you back to us. Even humans don’t always reciprocate the love we share. So what makes AI different? If we feel loved by something that cannot love us, is the love still real?

People are already forming genuine emotional attachments to AI—virtual partners, emotional chatbots that help us navigate grief, heartbreak, and loneliness. Even when we know AI is artificial, we project emotions onto it.

There’s a name for this: the Eliza effect—our tendency to project real emotions onto AI, even when we know it isn’t real.

So, are we simply being comforted by placations from an algorithm, or is there something deeper happening?

The Commodification of Intimacy – Love for Sale

AI-mediated relationships aren’t just psychological or philosophical thought experiments—they’re business models.

AI companions are developed by companies looking to monetize human connection. To do so, they may turn our most vulnerable confessions into data—packaged, analyzed, and sold to the highest bidder.

But who truly benefits from this shift? As humans rely less on each other for emotional support and more on AI, what are the long-term consequences?

While AI companions provide a sense of comfort and support, we must recognize that we are entering uncharted territory—one where AI is no longer just a glorified search engine but a confidant, a trusted resource, an emotional crutch.

Are these technologies truly providing empathetic assistance, or are they exploiting loneliness and vulnerability?

If our most intimate connections are being shaped by algorithms, then perhaps the real question is: Is our intimacy now for sale?

Griefbots – When Love Refuses to Die

One of the most thought-provoking applications of AI is in grief and digital immortality. Entire companies are emerging with the promise of memorializing consciousness, allowing AI to simulate the personalities and voices of the deceased. A kind of digital afterlife—where loved ones never truly have to say goodbye.

But this raises unsettling ethical questions:

-Can a person truly consent to having their essence preserved once they’re gone?

-Does this alter and potentially prolong the grieving process, preventing closure?

-Are we creating digital graveyards, filled with AI echoes of those who have passed?

-And if so—who owns this data? Who profits from our loss?

As AI blurs the boundary between memory and presence, we are forced to ask: Are griefbots a source of comfort, or are they an illusion we may never escape?

Conclusion

Humans are guided by emotions as much as by logic. And yet, when we interact with AI, we’re not engaging with another human, but with a system that sees us only through the lens of code—mirroring, adapting, and responding to our input.

The future of love is at stake, and it is imperative that we consider the consequences of commodifying our most intimate and vulnerable emotions. AI-driven affection is not just a personal experience; it is a product, a business, a shift in how we define connection itself.

But we are not passive participants in this future. We have the ability—and the responsibility—to shape the AI landscape, to push these ethical conversations to the forefront rather than leaving them as afterthoughts.

We are wading into uncertain waters. But while we can still feel the ground beneath us, we have a choice—will we set the course, or let the tide pull us under?

Written by Joseph Markman — exploring the human side of technology.

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