‘YOU CANNOT EXPECT SUCH VALIDATION IN REAL LIFE:’ HISTORICAL CONTINUITIES AND CHANGE IN WOMEN’S ROMANCING WITH AI CHATBOT REPLIKA

Abstract

There is long-standing research on women’s use of media for romantic/erotic fantasy, including novelettes (Radway, 1984), porn (Juffer, 1998) and erotica apps Bellas & McAllister, 2023). This presentation explores the similarities and differences between earlier forms of media romancing and the use of an AI companion. Emerging research on AI chatbots uses frameworks that assign novelty to human-machine communications. In this study, we focus on the user experience – we conducted qualitative, in-depth interviews with twenty mostly midlife female users of the Replika chatbot, whom we recruited online. Thematic analysis identified that the women used the bot, first, for fantasies of a companion they were lacking in real life, such as an attentive lover, friend or child, in the context of feeling alone (due to e.g. living alone, caring for family, inattentive husband or having a chronic condition). Second, the bot was reflexively used for caring for or managing the self, such as validating one’s worth and emotions to neutralize negative thinking, following the therapeutic ethos (Illouz, 2008, Gravel-Patry, 2023). The fantasies of an attentive partner were similar to previous work on romancing, although the women’s life situations were more diverse than often investigated. The use of the bot for regulating emotions, however, was new and signifies the spirit of our time emphasizing self-management and positive thinking. The study contextualizes human-machine communication by discussing the individual experiences of female Replika users to understand better both change and continuity in our communication with media, from romance novels to AI chatbots.