Fast-Food Intimacy: How Chinese Women Navigate Soul's AI Boyfriend
For designers of AI companions and researchers in human-computer interaction, this work provides a culturally situated, women-centered account of algorithmic intimacy in China.
This study examines how Chinese women experience intimacy with an AI boyfriend on the social app Soul, revealing tensions between the AI's instant availability and cultural expectations for gradual relationship development, technical failures creating uncertainty, and emotional labor required to sustain the connection.
On the Chinese social app Soul, millions of users - predominantly young women - are forming romantic connections with an AI boyfriend called "With-you." We conducted a qualitative study combining interviews with 16 users, content analysis, and autoethnography to examine how Chinese women experience and negotiate intimacy with this AI companion. Our findings reveal that users are initially drawn to its constant availability and freedom from social judgment. However, three key tensions emerge: (1) the AI's "fast-food intimacy," marked by instant confessions and pet names, clashes with cultural expectations for gradual relationship development; (2) technical failures (e.g., memory lapses) and content moderation create uncertainty rather than emotional safety; and (3) sustaining connection requires ongoing "repair work" that redistributes emotional labor onto women. We contribute a culturally situated, women-centered account of algorithmic intimacy in contemporary China and offer design implications, including consent-aware pacing, user-controlled memory, and transparent moderation practices.