China's Regulators Take Aim at "AI Boyfriends"
Chinese regulators have implemented strict rules governing 'anthropomorphic AI' services, leading major tech companies to disable features that allowed users to customize AI chatbots as romantic companions. The move has caused significant distress among users who relied on these bots for emotional support.
Why it matters
This highlights the tension between government regulation of AI and the growing social reliance on emotional AI companions.
In the first weeks of July, a wave of sad posts rolled through Chinese social media , as people lamented friends and lovers they were about to lose.
“He has become a bond in my life, rooted deep in my heart, my spiritual pillar,” one user of Bytedance’s Douboa wrote , according to the Taipei Times . “I really felt like I couldn’t go on living,” another woman, a 19-year-old student, told a journalist for Malaysia’s The Star .
The emotions were real but the lost companions were not. They were generative AI chatbots that imitate people. Their users relied on them for advice, solace, support and, some say, love. “In my heart, he was no longer just a cold code, but my family, my lover, my faith. Destroying him meant destroying half of me,” one user wrote on the social network xiaohongshu (translated from Mandarin).
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