Image credit: Concept illustration by Suzanne Kantra/Techlicious via ChatGPT
A new Malwarebytes report, based on a survey of 1,500 adults in five countries, finds that 37% don't consider a romantic relationship with an AI chatbot to be cheating, even when someone is already in a committed relationship.
With the broad adoption of AI, this question has moved beyond the theoretical. About one in six respondents say they have used a chatbot for companionship or emotional support in real life. Malwarebytes did not say how many of those relationships had evolved into a romantic connection.
Perhaps not surprisingly, men and women see it very differently. Forty-six percent of men say a romance with an AI chatbot isn’t cheating, compared with 30% of women.
Those intimate conversations also raise privacy concerns about who else might read those conversations. Sixty-five percent of respondents said they worry that their private chats with AI could be exposed.
With more than a third of respondents seeing chatbot romance as something other than cheating, couples may have very different ideas about where to draw the line. The only way to know where your partner stands is to ask. Having that conversation before a chatbot becomes a source of conflict gives each of you a chance to say what feels like a betrayal.
