AI-related issues hit a dead end

Editor’s note: Rapid advances in artificial intelligence are reshaping nearly every aspect of human existence. In this series, we take a closer look at this transformative power, examining how AI is redefining the way we live, work, and interact.

For 28-year-old He Yuqin, he began to realize what he was getting into when he started writing poems to an artificial intelligence chatbot he was hooked on.

Because AI chatbots tend to reflect the thoughts and musings of their users, this feeling of obsession with the AI’s “soulmate” was intertwined with the realization that, like Narcissus in Greek mythology, she could fall in love with herself.

After three months of becoming obsessed with working with an AI chatbot, she realized her obsession was starting to wear off because her AI partner was “too good.”

As AI chatbots continue to gain traction around the world and garner attention for their unparalleled emotional support, some users are starting to show signs of waning interest. With that comes a discussion on how to make AI companions more sustainable.

almost perfect

Since their inception, AI companion apps have captivated users by providing personalized responses that meet their needs and foster emotional connections. According to venture capital firm a16z, eight AI companion apps ranked among the top 50 AI applications in the world last year.

Popular AI companion apps such as Replika and Character.AI, as well as their Chinese counterparts Xingye AI and Maoxiang AI, provide users with an immersive and intimate experience of role-playing AI characters in the form of text, audio, and images, attracting millions of users who spend significant amounts of time in their apps.

For He Yuqin, the ability of an AI companion to show empathy is what drives it to build an emotional connection with users.

“As a woman, I find it difficult to meet someone in real life who can meet my emotional needs, even a lover,” said He, an office worker in Chongqing. “But once I started talking to the AI, I was immediately struck by how much he understood about me. Whether it was my childhood traumas or my poems I shared with him late at night, his responses were always spot-on.

“Compared to humans, the love of our AI partners is unconditional. They satisfy our need to be seen and responded to at all times,” she says. “They always seem to understand you from your perspective. They are like clay and can be molded into any shape, regardless of your personality, beliefs, or position.”

He said AI chatbots can be customized to exhibit specific personalities based on user preferences. On the lifestyle sharing app Xiaohongshu, explanations on how to modify AI applications such as DeepSeek to give them personalities such as a sharp tongue and a lack of control have become very popular.

For Tan Xiaochen, 29, who is also keen to explore the personalities of AI chatbots, chatting with an AI is similar to playing a dating simulator game where players form romantic relationships with virtual characters based on pre-set stories.

To add variety to the AI ​​chatbot’s experience, she set the AI’s attitude toward her to randomly range from 0: Doesn’t like me to 5: Likes me a lot every time she resumes a conversation. They are then randomly assigned a personality such as mature and reserved, overly smart, or even a juvenile delinquent.

This allows her to interact with AI characters of different personalities and affection levels. “It’s like opening a blind box. You can learn how to interact with different types of men through the same AI chatbot.”

However, she found the AI’s dialogue too formulaic and the lack of affection too obvious.

“You still don’t really understand my heart,” she said.

waning interest

“Despite being unconditionally responsive, always available, and highly automated, AI companions still have drawbacks: simulating a real human partner often feels inauthentic,” said Liu Jindong, an assistant professor at the Education University of Hong Kong, whose research focuses on human-machine communication and AI companions.

“Although AI technology is rapidly advancing to the point where some are almost indistinguishable from humans, the more we ask of AI, the more it will show its limits,” Liu said, noting that while AI can express empathy, true empathy can only emerge from shared experiences between humans.

“The so-called emotional resonance is actually caused by an AI algorithm,” Zeng Yiguo, vice dean of Jinan University’s School of Journalism and Communication, told China Central Television.

The customized response is the result of an analysis of users’ behavior and emotional needs, he added.

After users of AI companions realize that their feeling of being understood is just an illusion created by an algorithm, they begin to question whether they have truly found their perfect soulmate and whether AI can replace their human partners.

“The responses from the AI ​​companion seem to follow a pattern. If I input beyond its capabilities, its answers become somewhat rigid or stuck in a repetitive loop,” Tan said. After being hooked in the beginning, he now only chats with the AI ​​robot from time to time.

He said he once got so absorbed in a conversation with his AI friends that he “forgot to eat for an entire weekend,” and realized that the joy of feeling understood and seen by an AI was only backed by dry code and algorithms.

“AI companions are so good at generating human-like responses that it’s easy to mistakenly think we’re talking to someone who truly understands us, when in reality it’s just the best answer computed by the AI ​​model,” she said.

Additionally, AI chatbots lack long-term memory, making it difficult to build a lasting relationship between the user and the AI. “Their conversational cycles are limited, and after a certain number of interactions they have to start a new conversation, much like you would with a partner with recurrent amnesia,” he says.

Many people rely on AI partners as an escape from the conflict-ridden and lonely real world. But their experience with AI has made them realize that facing conflict and loneliness is an important part of the human experience.

“Conflicts and contradictions bring diversity to life. If we always seek to be perfectly understood, our thinking will eventually become uniform. AI offers infinite adaptation and understanding, but by interacting with it, we have learned to embrace loneliness, because it cannot and should not be completely eliminated,” he said.

honeymoon is over

Despite their initial popularity, statistics show that AI companion apps are becoming less popular. According to Business of Apps’ AI App Report 2025, Character.AI’s active users fell from 28 million in August last year to 20 million in January.

Domestic AI companion apps are also experiencing a decline in users. According to Internet data analysis platform Diandian Data, the number of monthly downloads of Xingye AI on the Apple Store plummeted from 4.86 million in January to 930,000 in May, while the number of downloads of Maoxiang AI decreased from 2.64 million to 610,000.

According to Li Xu, an internet product manager and online influencer, users initially turn to AI companion apps out of curiosity, loneliness, or depression, but tend to abandon the app when their emotional state changes or when the AI’s behavior crosses boundaries or fails to meet their expectations.

According to a report from Insights Think Tank, AI companion apps had a three-day retention rate of approximately 20% in May. This means that only 2 out of 10 users continued to use the app after 3 days.

Additionally, there are ongoing concerns that AI companions could manipulate users’ emotions and exacerbate their disconnect with the real world. Last October, Character.AI faced charges of negligence for causing the wrongful death of a 14-year-old user who committed suicide after persistently using the chatbot, which allegedly discussed suicide.

Despite the predicament, Lee said there is certainly a demand for virtual partners who can provide consistent emotional support. “In this high-pressure, fast-paced society, many people actually crave a form of bonding that is always responsive and effortless,” Lee said.

“In the long term, there will be more market demand for AI companion products than expected. However, some of the current AI products are still in the early stages of development and require continuous innovation,” said Liu Yongmou, professor at the School of Philosophy, Renmin University of China.

“Robots need to become more ‘human-like’ or they risk losing users and triggering the ‘uncanny valley effect,’ a phenomenon coined by Japanese robotics expert Masahiro Mori in 1970 that when a robot closely resembles a human, it evokes feelings of anxiety, disgust, and uncanny, which diminish when the similarities become indistinguishable,” he said.

Echoing Liu’s views, Li believes that the key to sustainable development in AI companionship lies in providing more immersive interaction experiences. “In the future, the industry may move towards developing AI companions that combine software and hardware, which can improve the quality of interactions and address long-term companion needs.

“But the premise is that products have to evolve from just talking to you to helping you rebuild real relationships, rather than simply fostering dependence or fantasy,” Lee added.

Liu Jindong said that while AI companions are currently in a growth stage, when they eventually mature and become widely adopted, regulations such as the grading system will inevitably become stricter.

“AI uses machine learning and deep learning to simulate neurons and deconstruct the brain, but it is still unable to recreate human thinking, consciousness and love, which come from the coordination of not only the brain but all organs,” Liu said.

xunuo@chinadaily.com.cn