Stumbling Into AI Emotional Dependence: How Routine AI Interactions Reshape Human Connection

陷入 AI 情感依赖：日常 AI 交互如何重塑人类连接

Abstract: Public discourse and emerging policy typically assume that AI emotional support is a deliberate act: a lonely user consciously seeking comfort from a dedicated companion chatbot. In this paper, we draw on emerging empirical evidence and argue that this picture is inaccurate on two accounts, both in how AI emotional support arises and how it shapes future behavior.

摘要： 公共舆论和新兴政策通常认为，AI 情感支持是一种刻意的行为：即孤独的用户有意识地从专门的陪伴型聊天机器人那里寻求慰藉。在本文中，我们基于最新的实证证据指出，这种观点在两个方面是不准确的，即 AI 情感支持的产生方式及其对未来行为的影响方式。

First, AI emotional support commonly emerges incidentally within task-oriented interactions on general-purpose platforms, much as workplace friendships deepen through collaboration. Second, these incidental encounters are path-dependent: positive experiences of AI emotional support update people’s beliefs about AI’s emotional capabilities and redirect their choices for future emotional support, increasing preference for AI and decreasing preference for humans.

首先，AI 情感支持通常是在通用平台的任务导向型交互中偶然产生的，就像职场友谊通过协作而加深一样。其次，这些偶然的相遇具有路径依赖性：对 AI 情感支持的积极体验会更新人们对 AI 情感能力的认知，并改变他们未来寻求情感支持的选择，从而增加对 AI 的偏好，并降低对人类的偏好。

We review recent evidence, including a large-scale longitudinal study conducted in collaboration with OpenAI, showing that daily five-minute conversations with an AI about personal issues over 28 days led to a 10.3% decrease in the preference for seeking support from humans and an 11.6% increase in the preference for AI.

我们回顾了近期的证据，包括一项与 OpenAI 合作进行的大规模纵向研究。研究显示，在 28 天的时间里，每天与 AI 进行五分钟关于个人问题的对话，导致人们寻求人类支持的偏好下降了 10.3%，而对 AI 的偏好则上升了 11.6%。

These findings suggest that current policy, focused on companion apps and isolated interactions, cannot adequately protect human connection. Instead, effective regulations should extend to general-purpose AI systems and address cumulative, trajectory-level changes in how people seek support. Recognizing how people stumble into AI emotional support and how those encounters redirect human connections over time is essential to safeguarding human well-being.

这些发现表明，目前侧重于陪伴类应用和孤立交互的政策，无法充分保护人类连接。相反，有效的监管应扩展至通用 AI 系统，并解决人们在寻求支持方式上累积的、轨迹层面的变化。认识到人们是如何“陷入”AI 情感支持的，以及这些相遇如何随时间推移重塑人类连接，对于维护人类福祉至关重要。