Digital Companionship: How AI Companions Influence Human Interpersonal Connections
With the rapid development of artificial intelligence technology, AI companions have become increasingly popular in recent years. However, one of the main changes in this trend is that instead of simple task execution tools, the AI chatbots have evolved to “quasi-social agents” capable of having deep emotional interactions with humans, causing a huge shock to human social life. This paper, based on the stimulation hypothesis and the displacement hypothesis–the two most representative and competing frameworks in social media research–discusses the complex impact of AI companions on interpersonal relationships in real life. On the one hand, AI companions provide psychological compensation for individuals with social anxiety as well as enhance their social skills, playing a significant role in social compensation; on the other hand, interactions with AI systems can produce a “time displacement effect” and the risk of deskilling, through which may weaken users’ ability to handle real and complicated interpersonal connections, thereby adversely affecting their real-world social relationships. This paper seeks to draw an ethical boundary for future artificial emotion research and development and ensure that humans still retain the ability to maintain genuine and profound emotional connections in an era of coexistence with technology.