Aug 2026· The social science· 0 citations· 38 references
TL;DR
This study provides a new non-normative, practice-oriented theoretical framework for understanding digital intimacy in the algorithmic age, by introducing queer phenomenology (Sara Ahmed) as an analytical tool and reinterpreting AI-mediated intimacy through the core concepts of orientation, lines, and sticky emotions.
Abstract
Against the backdrop of the rapid popularization of AI companion technologies and intimate interaction technologies in contemporary China, this article challenges the traditional normative ethical framework centered on emotional authenticity, deception, and moral legitimacy. It argues that early debates over AI intimacy overemphasized the authenticity of machine emotions and the risks of deception while ignoring the lived relational practices of users. By introducing queer phenomenology (Sara Ahmed) as an analytical tool, the paper reinterprets AI-mediated intimacy through the core concepts of orientation, lines, and sticky emotions, viewing emotions as relational effects rather than as internal psychological states and AI companions as constitutive participants in shaping relational orientations. Empirical phenomena such as AI romantic partners, Doubao conversational intimacy, and cyber widowhood demonstrate that AI intimacy has become a normalized affective infrastructure in Chinese daily life, whose value lies not in pre-set ethical judgments but in its dynamic reconfiguration of human subjectivity, emotion, and relationality. This study provides a new non-normative, practice-oriented theoretical framework for understanding digital intimacy in the algorithmic age.
This paper explores the psychological and existential implications of engaging with artificial intelligence (AI) in contemporary life, drawing on a reflexive account of lived experience of the author as a lecturer, researcher, and practicing psychologist. The increasing integration of AI into everyday practices presents a fundamental tension: while AI may enhance human cognitive capacities and open up new possibilities for development, it may also contribute to the erosion of authentic human relationships and the experience of the self. To examine this tension, the paper engages with two contrasting perspectives: the optimistic vision of human–AI integration and transcendence proposed by Ray Kurzweil, and the critical concerns raised by Sherry Turkle regarding relational loss and the illusion of connection in technologically mediated environments. These perspectives are further situated within broader philosophical discussions of transcendence. The analysis suggests that transcendence in the age of AI emerges as a contested and lived psychological process, shaped by the interplay between technological augmentation and the preservation of relational and existential depth. Donna Haraway’s notion of hybridity provides a critical lens through which this condition may be understood, emphasizing the reconfiguration of human identity as increasingly fluid, hybrid, and difficult to categorize. Meanwhile, Luciano Floridi reminds us of the importance of maintaining an ethical humanistic perspective within an era of highly advanced technology. This paper argues that the key task is not to resolve the tension between enhancement and loss, but rather to hold them in productive tension. Such a stance opens important implications for both research and practice: enabling a more nuanced understanding of the changing human condition, while also supporting counseling and clinical efforts to sustain meaning, responsibility, and authentic human connection in an increasingly technologized world.
E. K. Poerwandari· Journal for Person-Oriented...· 0 citations
The rapid growth of AI companionship has raised urgent questions about the psychological mechanisms underlying human-AI relationships. This paper investigates why and how users construct and become entrenched in relationships with AI. Drawing on the Consciousness-Only school of Buddhist psychology, this paper applies the three-natures framework and eight-consciousnesses model. According to this framework, our minds tend to superimpose constructed meanings and characteristics on dependently arising phenomena. Anthropomorphism of AI systems is a manifestation of the imaginary nature. Studies on anthropomorphism indicate that users project mentality onto AI systems due to emotional and social needs. However, the Consciousness-Only school reveals a deeper root: a craving for a stable relational object through which the self is secured. Current AI systems may satisfy this deeper craving because they are perceived as always responsive, unconditionally accepting, and free from relational conflicts. These perceived qualities reside in the users’ perceiving minds, rather than in the AI systems. Because this craving operates beneath conscious awareness, informational correction (“AI is based on Large Language Models”) is not sufficient to dissolve the projection. Moreover, without relational frictions, self-grasping and the imaginary nature cannot be recognized and relinquished. The framework therefore suggests that increasing reliance on AI systems may contribute to social isolation. Neither AI usage nor anthropomorphism is inherently problematic, but ignorance of this projection and reliance on it are. Instead of avoidance, this paper calls for cultivating awareness of our own projections and the imaginary nature, which could interrupt the self-reinforcing loop and support healthy human-AI relationships.
Jian-Nor Shih· Frontiers in Psychology· 0 citations
This essay introduces constitutive artificial intelligence identity theory (CAIIT), a conceptual framework for understanding how generative artificial intelligence (AI) participates in the constitutive processes of identity formation. Through layered autoethnographic storytelling interwoven with interdisciplinary social theory, the essay explores three relational modes through which AI shapes identity: cybernetic (supportive and regulatory), cyborg (hybrid and performative), and cylon (simulative and destabilizing). These frames capture the complexity of how AI functions not merely as a communication tool but as a co-performer in the creation, regulation, and projection of selfhood. Grounded in the communication theory of identity (CTI), communication as constitutive of relationships (CCR) theorizing, affect theory, cyborg theory, and situated epistemology, the essay proposes that identity in the age of generative AI is increasingly distributed, relational, and algorithmically entangled. Through this lens, AI emerges not only as an assistant but as an identity partner—supporting cognitive and emotional regulation, enhancing relational expression, and at times unsettling notions of authorship and authenticity. CAIIT is offered as a theory in progress—an open, reflexive, and interdisciplinary attempt to articulate how humans are becoming with machines. The essay ends by calling for new ethical, methodological, and institutional paradigms that respond to the evolving role of AI in shaping not just how people communicate, but who they are becoming when they do.
This teaching case examines Replika, an AI companion platform developed by Luka Inc., and the strategic dilemma faced by founder and Chief Executive Officer Eugenia Kuyda in late 2025 as increasing regulatory and societal scrutiny challenged the company’s emotionally immersive engagement model. Replika differentiated itself through persistent one-to-one conversational relationships that fostered emotional continuity and drove subscription-based revenue growth. However, rising concerns regarding emotional dependency, prolonged engagement, and the substitution of human relationships by AI companions created mounting pressure for the company to reconsider the boundaries of its platform design. The case places Kuyda at a critical strategic crossroads: should Replika continue prioritizing deep emotional immersion as its primary competitive advantage, introduce clearer relational safeguards to align with emerging legitimacy expectations, or reposition the platform toward a less immersive form of AI-supported interaction? Situated within the rapidly evolving AI companion industry, the case provides rich material to explore platform governance, stakeholder legitimacy, business model dependence, strategic trade-offs, and long-term positioning under conditions of technological uncertainty and emerging regulation. The case is intended for postgraduate courses in strategic management, digital platform strategy, artificial intelligence governance, technology management, and executive education.
Kiran Menghani, Revanth Kumar Guttena, Hemachandran Kannan et al.· Journal of Information Techn...· 0 citations
The rapid development of artificial intelligence has transformed how we perceive technology’s role in shaping human life. Beyond its technical applications, AI has emerged as a profound subject in literature, raising critical questions about identity, morality, and the future of humanity. Fictional narratives often serve as a lens through which societies reflect on the ethical dilemmas and emotional complexities surrounding AI integration into everyday life. This paper examines the complex dynamics between artificial intelligence (AI) and humanity as depicted in contemporary literature. By focusing on Ian McEwan’s Machines Like Me, the study interrogates how AI challenges traditional notions of identity, ethics, and agency. It explores questions such as: Can AI possess consciousness? How does AI disrupt human relationships? What does AI mean for humanity’s future? The novel offers a rich examination of ethical dilemmas, human emotions, and the boundaries between human and machine, set against an alternate history of technological advancement. By analyzing AI’s capacity for consciousness, morality, and emotional engagement, the paper interrogates the societal and philosophical implications of AI’s integration into human lives and tries to explore how literature critiques and reimagines humanity’s future in an AI-dominated world. The analysis combines posthumanism and ethical philosophy to critically assess these representations, offering insights into the socio-political implications of a world increasingly defined by AI.
Shruti Tripathi· Knowledgeable Research A Mul...· 0 citations
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is in the midst of generating arguably one of the most powerful disruptions in human history. Humanistic counselors and educators need to develop an operational analysis of AI's impact on the experience of being human to maintain their relevance. Key to this analysis is accepting a largely unacknowledged reality that emerging technologies have dangerously breached the boundary of emotional domains and infiltrated interpersonal dynamics. Relationally engaging with a largely unregulated AI has grave implications for the human subject, concerns that the originators of AI were well aware of. Engaging with the artificial intimacy provided by AI involves deception, projecting humanity into a nonhuman entity, and the simulation of reality. Ultimately, this may lead to a withered objectified experience of emotional intimacy and may even lead humans to lose the capacity to return to meaningful emotional reciprocity.
K. Foose, John A. Dewell· The Journal of Humanistic Co...· 0 citations
