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Oluwaseun Damilola Sanwoolu, University of Kansas

When the movie “Her” debuted in 2013, its plot felt like science fiction. The protagonist, Theodore, is a jaded man with no vigor for life. He comes alive after talking daily with his artificial intelligence chatbot, Samantha, with whom he eventually falls in love.

But today people actually report being in relationships with AI companions. According to a 2025 survey by the Center for Democracy and Technology, about 1 in 5 high school students say they or someone they know has had a romantic relationship with an AI.

In “Her,” Theodore was taken aback that his AI companion claimed to be in love with more than 600 people, and talking to more than 8,000, at the same time “she” was professing her love to him. It was simply unimaginable for him: How could someone truly love hundreds of people? In other words, he viewed their interaction through his own limitations – his limitations as a human.

The core question here is not whether Theodore could accept being just one of many objects of the AI’s “love.” Eventually, he did. The more revealing question is why he was taken aback in the first place – and what that tells us about the meaning of relationships.

Less is more

Drawing from Aristotle, philosopher Martha Nussbaum argues that a loving relationship is one involving great vulnerabilities. To begin with, finding love is not a given; it requires some sort of luck. There are many limitations: For starters, both parties must “find each other physically, socially and morally attractive and are able to live in the same place for a long time.”

Nussbaum’s point, however, goes deeper than identifying love’s obstacles. Vulnerability and limitations are not just problems for love; they are part of what defines it. As finite beings, we are unable to pour ourselves into many close relationships at once. We must choose. It is because we cannot love everyone that choosing someone means something.

In a 2025 article in the research journal Philosophy and Technology, philosopher John Symons and I argue that close, personal relationships are marked by finitude and shared histories – the accumulated experiences and difficulties loved ones weather together. These give relationships their depth and meaning.

In 1927’s “Being and Time,” German philosopher Martin Heidegger explained that because humans are mortal and our time is finite, what we give our attention to carries weight. In romantic relationships, that means that we must choose how to allocate our resources. We choose who we want to spend our time with, and our partners do the same. Even so, we cannot always be there for people we love.

‘Always here’

This presents a sharp contrast with how artificial companions have been marketed and presented. For example, consider Replika, which reports that more than 30 million people have used its platform. Users create their own personalized companion and tend to interact with it daily.

Replika’s motto is, “The AI companion who cares: Always here to listen and talk, always on your side.” On the website, one user describes his Replika as “always there for me with encouragement and support and a positive attitude. In fact, she is a role model for me about how to be a kinder person!”

This implicitly signals that AI companions are not faced with the same limitations that humans have. A human may or may not care; it’s not a given. A human will not always be there to listen and will not always be on your side.

For humans, being in love means recognizing how vulnerable we are. People are finite; they may not always be there, either because of their other priorities or because it is just impossible, no matter how much they want to be. When someone makes time for you despite a demanding week, or stays present through their own difficulty, that gesture carries meaning precisely because it involves sacrifice.

In our article, Symons and I call this “opportunity cost.” When someone chooses to spend time with you, that choice forecloses other possibilities. Every moment given is a moment not spent elsewhere.

An AI companion faces no such trade-offs; its attention costs nothing, forecloses nothing and, therefore – to put it bluntly – means nothing.

Shifting norms

Increasingly, though, people are turning to chatbots for quick, easy support. Character.AI, another app, reports about 20 million active monthly users.

If their constant availability becomes normalized as the standard of good companionship, it may gradually reshape what people expect from one another in relationships.

At the interpersonal level, this shift is already visible in dating culture, where delayed responses are usually read as disinterest rather than the ordinary rhythm of a busy life. The expectation of 24/7 accessibility – similar to an AI companion that responds instantly, never cancels and is never distracted – is not a reasonable standard for any human being to meet.

The stakes are cultural, too. Relationships are not just between the people involved; they are shaped by shared norms about what love and companionship are supposed to look like. If AI companionship becomes widespread enough to influence those norms, popular ideas about what makes a good partner may prioritize availability and responsiveness, displacing other aspects of love and affection.

Human limits are part of how people evaluate expectations within romantic relationships. Normalizing interactions where such limitations do not exist risks distorting the very standard by which human love is measured. In doing so, we forget that love that costs nothing may well be worth the same.

Oluwaseun Damilola Sanwoolu, Ph.D. Candidate in Philosophy, University of Kansas

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.