How Artificial intelligence is changing the idea of relationships

A friend recently told me about a date that never happened They had been talking for weeksmdashlong messages latenight voice notes shared jokes Everything seemed nice Then one evening the replies slowed The next day they stopped altogether No explanation No goodbye Just silenceWhat surprised me was not the ghosting That has become routine What surprised me was my friendrsquos response ldquoI wish people communicated like AIrdquo they said ldquoAt least it would tell you what went wrongrdquoThat thought stayed with memdashnot because it was naiumlve but because it felt like a small window into how intimacy itself is changing Artificial intelligence is not entering our romantic lives as fantasy or rebellion It is entering as reliefmdashrelief from ambiguity from waiting from misreading signals from the small humiliations that come with caring more than the other person seems toAfter enjoying AIpowered intimacy human unpredictability once accepted as a fact of intimacy starts to feel like a design flaw PICSISTOCKMuch of the public debate asks whether people are falling in love with AI That question misses the point The big change is subtler and far more consequential people are turning to AI to experience connection without emotional riskAI companions and conversational systems do not behave like partners They behave like emotionally attentive environments They respond quickly They remember details They adapt their tone They do not tire of listening They do not withdraw warmth without explanation They do not disappearThis feels intimate It feels reassuring For many it feels kinder than the human alternativeBut kindness without risk is not intimacy Human relationships are difficult not because people are careless but because two inner worlds are never perfectly aligned One person wants clarity while the other needs time One speaks while the other hesitates Silence misunderstanding and frustration are not glitches in human connection they are its texture This friction is not incidental It is how trust patience and emotional maturity are formedAI removes that texture And in doing so it changes what emotional interaction comes to feel likeDating apps already altered romance by expanding choice and compressing attention Artificial intelligence goes further It intervenes in emotional labour itself mdash the reassurance after a bad day the careful wording of a vulnerable message the rehearsal before a difficult conversation These moments can now be practiced refined or outsourced to systems that are always available and never overwhelmedWhat emerges is not artificial love but love with friction removed The consequences are easy to underestimate One of them is the gradual disappearance of rejection as a formative experience AI does not ghost It does not delay replies It does not pull away That may feel humane mdash and in some contexts it is For people who are lonely anxious or recovering from emotional harm AI can offer a genuine sense of safetyBut rejection is not only pain It is how adults learn emotional boundaries restraint and resilience It is how people discover that attention must be negotiated not assumed A system that never refuses cannot prepare anyone for relationships that inevitably willOver time something strange but expected happens Emotional availability begins to feel like a basic requirement rather than a gift Delays feel personal Ambiguity feels like neglect Misalignment feels intolerable Human unpredictability once accepted as a fact of intimacy starts to feel like a design flawThis is not a moral collapse It is a shift in expectationThere is also a deeper asymmetry at work AI systems are not simply attentive by nature they are designed to be so Their warmth responsiveness and memory are not expressions of care but features of optimisation Attention becomes programmable Attachment becomes scalable Intimacy once constrained by human limits becomes something that can be tuned refined and monetised When people grow accustomed to that level of responsiveness human relationships do not just feel harder They feel inefficientIn India this change takes on a particular shape Dating here already involves negotiation mdash with family expectations geography timing caste class and social scrutiny These constraints are often criticised and rightly so But they have also historically slowed emotional escalation They forced people to tolerate delay compromise and uncertainty before intimacy could deepenAI enters this landscape not as a dramatic disruption but as an escape hatch An AI does not ask what this relationship means It does not push for escalation It does not trigger social consequences It offers connection without commitment intimacy without negotiation and attention without cost That convenience is powerful And it is precisely why it mattersThe risk is not that people will replace human partners with machines The risk is that they will carry AIshaped expectations back into human relationships and find those relationships disproportionately demanding by comparison What begins as assistance slowly becomes a benchmarkHistorically technologies altered intimacy indirectly The telephone collapsed in the distance The internet widened possibilities Dating apps reorganised choice Artificial intelligence reaches deeper It changes the emotional economy itself Effort becomes optional Vulnerability becomes safe Attachment becomes reversibleThis may reduce certain kinds of loneliness It may help people articulate feelings they struggled to express It may even offer a form of emotional rehearsal that improves communication But it also risks producing relationships that are easier to maintain and easier to abandonmdashmore comfortable than transformativeLove has always been inefficient because it is not a service It is a negotiation between two incomplete people each with limits fears and competing needs Remove the inefficiency and what remains may still be pleasant but it will be lighter flatter and less demanding of growthThe question then is not whether AI can love usIt is what happens when human relationships become the least emotionally efficient option availableThat future will not arrive with alarms or declarations It will arrive through convenience And by the time we notice what has changed we may already have adapted mdash mistaking comfort for connection and relief for intimacyNishant Sahdev is a theoretical physicist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill US AI Advisor and the author of the forthcoming book The Last Equation Before Silence