The Limits of Chatbot Love and the Good of Embodied Relationality

Abstract

This article draws attention to the rise of AI-enabled companion chatbots and what has been called algorithmic intimacy. After describing what is happening, I offer some suggestions as to why some people have turned to these technologies for companionship and support. I then offer a critical response to the increasing reliance on companion chatbots for love and intimacy, focusing on how these technologies can shape users in such a way that love can quickly entropy into self-idolization and self-aggrandizement, a conception that stands in stark contrast to the understanding of love in the classical Christian tradition, which is rooted in self-giving and self-sacrifice. I conclude by offering two recommendations as we look ahead to our emerging technosocial future: 1) the need to avoid what Ronald Wright calls progress traps and 2) the need to affirm the good of embodied relationality consisting of beholding the face of the other and listening to the other.