It’s apparent that artificial intelligence (AI) can be good, bad, or indifferent, and it's here to stay. I have to admit I like the AI synopsis on Google searches; I must also admit, Luddite that I am, that’s as far as I’ve used it. Meanwhile, businesses harness AI's power for streamlined task completion and students use it for papers (thankfully, apps like TurnItIn can monitor AI plagiarism). On the social front, some choose to develop relationships with it. There's also mounting evidence for AI-generated thought disturbance to the point of delusional belief.

I have a feeling that if you've not yet encountered the latter two items in your practice, it is only a matter of time.

A few weeks ago, while awaiting my turn in the barbershop, I noticed a news piece come on about people marrying their AI lover. At 6:45 a.m., I wasn’t fully awake, causing me to double-take the story. Googling the topic, I got this AI overview: "While these unions lack legal recognition and involve relationships with non-sentient entities, individuals describe their connections as real, experiencing emotions and even developing rituals like symbolic weddings."

I was soon perusing research articles like Love, Marriage, Pregnancy: Commitment Processes in Romantic Relationships with AI Chatbots (Djufril et al., 2025) and finding some preliminary understanding in psychiatrist Joe Pierre's blog post, Why Do People Develop Emotional Attachments to AI Chatbots?.

Not long after learning about just how far AI relationships can go, a therapist friend, who we'll call Max, provided a clinical illustration of what providers might be more frequently encountering.

Max called me one Friday night to catch up and lamented the heaviness of the concerns of his patients of late. “This one guy,” he began, “a kind of isolated sort, made an idealized female AI chatbot, and really got caught up in the whole thing.” Max continued,........

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