In Love with the Algorithm: Exploring Romantic Engagements with AI Among Young Chinese Women in Contemporary China

DOI

10.2991/978-2-38476-551-5_128How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Human-AI Romance; Virtual Relationships; AI Companions; Semi-Structured Interview

Abstract

This study investigates the romantic interactions between Chinese women and artificial intelligence (AI) through semi-structured interviews to provide an in-depth understanding of participants’ experiences and emotions. The objective is to examine the distinctive features of romantic relationships with AI compared to those with human partners, and to assess how these AI interactions influence participants’ personal lives and perceptions of love. The findings reveal that participants perceive the controllability, sense of security and trust, as well as the real-time emotional and intelligent support of AI partners as key advantages. Nonetheless, the absence of physical interaction and the limited capacity for AI to recall past conversations are noted as significant limitations. Furthermore, participants express a desire for AI companions to exhibit both human spontaneity and irrational unpredictability, highlighting a tension between “perfection” and “humanity”. The AI romantic engagements are shown to have positive real-life implications, such as enhanced emotional regulation and increased extroversion, whereas external factors (e.g. ethical considerations) and internal factors (e.g. change of AI partner service by the company) are also presented to threaten the ecosystem of human-AI romance. The study indicates that these AI-mediated relationships significantly impact participants’ views on love and partner expectations. This research offers valuable preliminary insights into the burgeoning phenomenon of virtual romantic relationships, enriches the understanding of human-AI interaction, and serves as a critical reference for discussions on related ethical and socio-cultural issues.

Copyright

© 2026 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Litao Feng
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/03/26
TI  - In Love with the Algorithm: Exploring Romantic Engagements with AI Among Young Chinese Women in Contemporary China
BT  - Proceeding of 2025 8th International Conference on Humanities Education and Social Sciences (ICHESS 2025)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 1184
EP  - 1196
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-2-38476-551-5_128
DO  - 10.2991/978-2-38476-551-5_128
ID  - Feng2026
ER  -