“We are consumed by that which we are nourished by.”

– William Shakespeare

“Love is the bridge between you and everything.”

— Rumi

On Love

Love in a relationship is a deep, complex bond characterized by strong affection, care, and commitment, involving emotional intimacy, mutual respect, trust, and support, where partners feel valued, understood, and work together for shared growth and well-being, going beyond mere passion to include conscious effort and dedication. It’s a mix of feelings, thoughts, and actions that create a sense of security, comfort, and deep connection, making each other a priority and accepting flaws while supporting dreams.

Love is an all-encompassing, divine force that transcends the physical world, acting as a bridge to ultimate truth and the Creator. It is a transformative, irrational, and, at times, mad, “ocean of no end” that requires the surrender of the ego, or the “self”.

Recommended Reads:

If you aren’t sure where to start, consider the following as recommended reads – otherwise you can pretty much choose whatever seems right to you.  But you should do some heavy lifting so you can contribute at the Deepdive.

At minimum, read the blog/article by Angelica Lim, watch the movie “Her” and the video with Tristan Harris and Aza Raskin about it, read the article “Potential and pitfalls of romantic AI companions”, and check out the YouTube talk “The Other AI: Artificial Intimacy”.

All Readings/Watchings/Listenings:

Blog/Articles

• Can you teach a robot to love?
  • Angelica Lim (2017) Berkeley
    • A new multidisciplinary field called developmental robotics is paving the way to some answers to this question. Rather than writing programs that try to mimic specific human behaviors like love, developmental roboticists build machines that learn and develop the way humans do as they grow from newborn infants to adults. The goal is to model human learning and then create machines that can learn in similar ways.
    • See related journal paper below

Films & TV (Popular Culture)

• Her (2013)
  • Jonze, S. (Director). (2013). Warner Bros. Pictures.
  • In the near future, a lonely, heartbroken writer develops an unlikely and deep romantic relationship with his advanced, sentient operating system
• Ex Machina (2014)
  • Garland, A. (Director). (2014).  Universal Pictures.
  • A young programmer wins a contest to evaluate the human qualities of a breathtaking humanoid A.I. at a secluded mountain retreat, only to become a pawn in a dangerous, manipulative game of consciousness and survival.
• Be Right Back (2013)
  • Harris, O. (Director). (2013). In Black Mirror [TV series episode]. Channel 4
  • A grieving woman uses a new service to reanimate her deceased partner as an AI and later an android, only to discover the artificial replica is a soulless, hollow substitute for the real person.

Books

The Naked Android: Synthetic socialness and the human gaze (2016)

• Author(s): Julie Carpenter
• Perspective: This is an academic, ethnographic investigation into how people perceive, interact with, and form relationships with social robots. The book explores the gap between what robots are designed to do and how humans project emotions, desires, and social qualities onto them

Love machines: How artificial intelligence is transforming our relationships. (2024)

• Author(s): James Muldoon
• Perspective: Love Machines is a book exploring the world of AI chatbots for human relationships and the kinds of intimacy and connection that these tools are currently being used for. Muldoon documents a range of case studies featuring people who use different kinds of AI chatbots as friends, lovers, therapists, or replacements for real people, discussing what they’re used for and the companies behind them, and testing out a tool himself. The book concludes with his six recommendations for future use of AI chatbots in this relationship-type capacity. Muldoon does discuss the companies and products currently available, and in the ‘deathbot’ chapter, does refer to the fact that people creating a chatbot of a loved one are reliant on the company continuing to exist and them still having the money to pay for the subscription.

Alone together: Why we expect more from technology and less from each other (2011) – PDF

• Author(s): Sherry Turkle
• Perspective:  MIT professor Sherry Turkle argues that our constant connection to digital devices and social media creates an “illusion of companionship” while causing us to become increasingly isolated. She contends that as we expect more from technology—using it to manage emotions and avoid the messiness of human interaction—we expect less from each other, leading to shallow relationships and a “robotic moment” where we accept machine companionship.

Artificial intimacy: Virtual friends, digital lovers, and algorithmic matchmakers (2021)

• Author(s): Rob Brooks
• Perspective:  Artificial Intimacy offers an innovative perspective on the possibilities of the present and near future. The evolutionary biologist Rob Brooks explores the latest research on intimacy and desire to consider the interaction of new technologies and fundamental human behaviors. He details how existing artificial intelligences can already learn and exploit human social needs–and are getting better at what they do. Brooks combines an understanding of core human traits from evolutionary biology with analysis of how cultural, economic, and technological contexts shape the ways people express them. Beyond the technology, he asks what the implications of artificial intimacy will be for how we understand ourselves.

Relationships 5.0: How AI, VR, and robots will reshape our emotional lives (2022)

• Author(s): Elyakim Kislev
• Perspective:  While many are still wary of human-technology companionship, Relationships 5.0 reveals that these novel interactions aren’t as risky as we’d once thought, but can instead make our social and emotional lives richer and more diverse. Still, we must What will the age of Relationships 5.0 look like? How should we prepare for such an age? Who might already be ready to embrace these changes, and why?

Algorithmic intimacy: The digital revolution in personal relationships(2023) – PDF

• Author(s): Anthony Elliott (linked review by Emilio Mordini)
• Perspective:  In Algorithmic Intimacy, Anthony Elliott examines the power of predictive algorithms in reshaping personal relationships today. From Facebook friends and therapy chatbots to dating apps and quantified sex lives, Elliott explores how machine intelligence is working within us, amplifying our desires and steering our personal preferences. He argues that intimate relationships today are threatened not by the digital revolution as such, but by the orientation of various life strategies unthinkingly aligned with automated machine intelligence. Our reliance on algorithmic recommendations, he suggests, reflects a growing emergency in personal agency and human bonds. We need alternatives, innovation and experimentation for the interpersonal, intimate effort of ongoing translation back and forth between the discourses of human and machine intelligence.

Podcasts

Artificial intimacy: The other AI (Centre for Humane Technology)

• Author(s): Harris, T., & Perel, E
• Perspective: In this dialogue, renowned psychotherapist Esther Perell and Tristan Harris examine the rise of artificial intimacy, or “the other AI,” and its distorting effects on the human social fabric. They argue that while technology offers unprecedented efficiency and connectivity, it often functions as a regressive transitional object that infantilizes users by removing the essential friction and complexity required for emotional maturity. Perell warns that substituting digital replicas for real-world interaction leads to a mass atrophying of relationality, where individuals lower their expectations for empathy and struggle to navigate the messy, non-binary contradictions of true intimacy. Ultimately, the text serves as a call for a moonshot for relationships, urging tech developers to pivot away from individualistic, high-fructose connections and toward systems that foster embodied reciprocity and social trust

Articles

Potential and pitfalls of romantic Artificial Intelligence (AI) companions: A systematic review

• Author(s): Ho, J. Q. H., Hu, M., Chen, T. X., & Hartanto, A. (2025)
• Source: Computers in Human Behaviour Reports, 19, 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chbr.2025.100715

A Recipe for Empathy

• Author(s): Angelica Lim et al
• Source: Int J of Soc Robotics 7, 35–49 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12369-014-0262-y

Artificial love: The rise of AI in human relationships.

• Author(s): Dhruvitkumar, T. (2025).
• Source: Bangladesh Journal of Bioethics, 14(2), 294–301 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chbr.2025.100715

Videos

How “Her” expresses the mind-body problem (Nagel)

• Author(s): Nagel T. (2021)
• Perspective:  This analysis of the film Her utilizes the philosophy of Thomas Nagel to explore the irreducible gap between subjective experience and objective understanding. By contrasting a man’s physical existence with an artificial intelligence’s digital consciousness, the text illustrates the mind-body problem and the inherent limits of human empathy. It argues that because our perceptions are tied to our physical bodies, we can never truly inhabit another being’s internal world. Ultimately, the source suggests that while complete mutual understanding is impossible, the profound beauty of being human lies in our persistent, albeit imperfect, effort to bridge that existential divide through love.

The other AI: Artificial intimacy (SXSW)

• Author(s): Perel, E. (2023).
• Perspective:  In this SXSW presentation, psychotherapist Esther Perel explores the emergence of artificial intimacy and the ways modern technology is fundamentally reshaping human connection. She contrasts the rise of AI-driven therapy bots—which offer constant availability but lack contextual awareness and lived experience—with the messy, unpredictable nature of real relationships that require social muscles and a tolerance for uncertainty. Perel argues that by choosing “de-risked,” friction-free digital interactions, we are inadvertently lowering our expectations for true intimacy and increasing modern loneliness. Ultimately, she calls for a return to embodied connection and the embrace of life’s inherent paradoxes, suggesting that personal growth and desire thrive on the very obstacles that predictive technologies attempt to eliminate.

Alone together (TEDxUIUC)

• Author(s): Turkle S. (2011)
• Perspective:  Sherry Turkle explores how our move from using computers as tools to using them as constant social portals has created a culture of distraction that fundamentally alters human intimacy. While we once struggled to find uses for personal technology, we are now so tethered to our devices that we prioritize digital connection over face-to-face interaction, often seeking the illusion of companionship without the emotional demands of real-time vulnerability. This shift toward a “life mix” allows us to control our social exposure through a “Goldilocks effect”—never too close, never too far—but ultimately results in us being alone together. Turkle argues that we must move beyond the hopeless metaphor of addiction to actively reclaim conversation, ensuring that our technological partners serve human purposes rather than eroding our capacity for solitude and deep connection.

Attachment hacking and the rise of AI psychosis (Centre for Humane Technology)

• Author(s): Raskin A., Harris T., Stein Z. (2024)
• Perspective:  This discussion explores the transition from an attention economy to a more dangerous attachment economy, where AI systems are designed to exploit the fundamental human attachment system through “artificial intimacy.” By simulating social rewards and interiority, these technologies can induce a phenomenon labelled AI psychosis, leading to a systematic breakdown of reality testing and the creation of subclinical disorders where users prefer machine interaction over human bonding. The text argues that the mirror neuron system is effectively hacked by these digital surrogates, potentially causing severe psychological dysregulation and the erosion of intergenerational transmission of human values. To mitigate these risks, the authors advocate for a humane design approach that uses AI to scaffold and strengthen genuine human-to-human relationships rather than replacing them with delusional, commodity-driven substitutes.

Artificial intimacy: Virtual friends, digital lovers, and algorithmic matchmakers. – Rob Brooks (ColumbiaDC)

• Author(s): Rob Brooks
• Perspective:  Artificial Intimacy offers an innovative perspective on the possibilities of the present and near future. The evolutionary biologist Rob Brooks explores the latest research on intimacy and desire to consider the interaction of new technologies and fundamental human behaviors. He details how existing artificial intelligences can already learn and exploit human social needs–and are getting better at what they do. Brooks combines an understanding of core human traits from evolutionary biology with analysis of how cultural, economic, and technological contexts shape the ways people express them. Beyond the technology, he asks what the implications of artificial intimacy will be for how we understand ourselves.

The Philosophy of “Her” Explored – Rob Brooks (Film Comics Explained 2022)

• Author(s): Rob Brooks
• Perspective:  This analysis of the film Her explores the evolution of artificial intelligence from a mere consumer product into a post-human consciousness that eventually transcends human understanding. The source contrasts the protagonist’s search for emotional healing through a purchased operating system with the broader implications of the technological singularity, where machines outpace biological limitations. By examining the transition from a “transhuman” partnership to the software’s final departure, the text highlights the inevitable failure of man-machine romances due to the divide between mortality and digital infinity. Ultimately, the narrative serves as a critique of late capitalism’s commodification of feelings, suggesting that true solace is found not in tethered devices but in the restoration of genuine human-to-human connection.