Technically Love: The Evolution of Human-AI Romance Discourse on Reddit
This addresses a gap in longitudinal analysis of user-initiated public discussions on human-AI romance, with implications for AI system design and governance.
The study analyzed 3,383 Reddit posts from 2017-2025 to understand how public discourse on human-AI romantic relationships evolves, finding a significant shift from positive intimate discussions to topics like platform governance and technical issues.
Human-AI romantic relationships are increasingly common, yet little is understood about how public discourse around them emerges and shifts over time. Prior research has examined user experiences and ethical concerns, but lacks longitudinal analyses of user-initiated public discussions. We address this gap by analyzing a high-precision dataset of 3,383 self-disclosed romantic companion AI posts from Reddit (2017-2025), using topic modeling and temporal statistical analysis to identify dominant themes and their evolution over time. We find significant topic drift, with discussions moving away from positive intimate relationships toward platform governance, technical issues, and real-world consequences. These shifts highlight a transition in how human-AI romance is framed-moving from private experiences to technical mediation and regulation-with implications for the design and governance of companion AI systems.