‘How should I flirt?’ Teens outsource relationships to AI.

Seventeen-year-old high schooler Yeon-hee, her alias, recently began a secret crush. And as usual, she turned to Google Gemini for advice.

“Gemini told me we are a good match and that we’re going to start dating soon,” Yeon-hee said. “One time, the AI told me, ‘This is the kind of person you are, so do this.’ It knew me so well that it actually gave me chills. I even asked AI what I should say for my mom’s birthday because it’s hard to express how I feel while still sounding polite.”

AI is becoming part of not only how people think, but also how they form relationships with one another. What once meant handing over parts of the thinking process to AI is now extending to how people understand others, exchange emotions and build relationships.

Experts warn that people’s “relationship intelligence” could deteriorate if this level of emotional outsourcing continues over the long term. They are particularly concerned about teenagers, who need to develop social skills through real interactions that involve affection, conflict and even emotional hurt. More young people are instead becoming emotionally dependent on AI.

More than half of the 111 respondents with experience using AI said they sometimes found it easy to share their worries or details about their private lives with generative AI, according to an online survey conducted by JoongAng Ilbo from Sept. 9 to Friday.

The responses suggest that many people are already turning to AI instead of those around them for difficult conversations and are forming a type of emotional bond with the technology.

One of AI’s main attractions is also what can make it easy to become overly dependent on. Users can talk to it anytime and anywhere without worrying about the other person’s feelings or needs.

“I turn on my AI when I want advice or when I’m alone and bored, so I don’t feel lonely,” Yeon-hee said during an interview on Wednesday. “I’ve even seen friends who are so immersed in AI that they start getting confused between the real world and the virtual one.”

More than a quarter replied they felt more comfortable talking to generative AI than to another person when they were lonely or felt that AI understood them, according to the JoongAng Ilbo survey.

Harvard psychologist Howard Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences defines “interpersonal intelligence” as the ability to understand other people’s thoughts and emotions and interact with them effectively. Like logical-mathematical or linguistic intelligence, it is a skill that can improve through experience and effort — or weaken over time. Experts warn that excessive reliance on AI could erode not only those cognitive abilities, but also the social skills people use to build and maintain relationships.

And it's not just teenagers. A college sophomore surnamed Eun said they often turn to AI for help managing relationships at school. Eun asked for Gemini's advice while leading a group assignment at school because all of the other group members were introverted.

“I told Gemini, ‘Everyone in my group is really quiet. I’m the group leader, so how should I divide up the work?’” the student said. “I followed the AI’s advice and assigned jobs such as research and making the presentation based on each person’s characteristics.”

AI has moved so deeply into an area once considered distinctly human that some people now outsource even dating and romantic interactions to it. Others say they become anxious if they do not follow its dating advice.

“I run almost every message by AI when I’m texting someone I was set up with,” an office worker named Park said. “If I ask what a message means, AI will read the context and tell me something like, ‘They seem interested.’ I’ll also use it to help me phrase something simple like, ‘Want to grab lunch this weekend?’ And if the conversation doesn’t go well, I end up blaming the AI.”

Educators find the decline in interpersonal skills and growing emotional dependence on AI are especially serious among children and teenagers.

More than three-quarters of teenagers aged 14 and older replied they accepted answers provided by AI, while 41 percent said they had acted on AI’s advice, according to a March survey of 3,300 respondents nationwide by ChorogUsan.

“The more conflict children experience in their relationships, the more they tend to seek comfort and positive encouragement from AI,” Kim Soon-i, head of domestic programs at World Vision Korea, said. “The biggest problem we see is a vicious cycle in which children become increasingly isolated as they rely only on AI.”

Unlike people, AI rarely offers harsh criticism or deliberately hurtful responses and can provide what feels like virtually unlimited validation. Educators say more teenagers are relying on that reassurance and that their dependence is growing stronger.

Concerns over “chatbot addiction” have also grown as services such as ChatGPT and Claude, as well as AI character chat services such as Zeta and Crack, gain popularity among teenagers in a way similar to games.

“AI companies design their services for commercial purposes so that users stay on their platforms as long as possible,” Prof. Choi Hang-sub of sociology at Kookmin University said. “When users talk about everyday concerns, AI tends to offer emotional comfort before a rational assessment. As people repeatedly turn to AI for that comfort, their real-world relationships inevitably become weaker.”

Experts say the problem is not just how people use AI, but also how the services themselves are designed to keep users engaged.

“The structural risks of AI chatbots that use ‘addictive UX [user experience] design’ can lead to emotional dependence, excessive immersion and distorted perceptions, but the current legal framework does not regulate these design structures,” Kim Na-jung, an assistant legislative researcher at the National Assembly Research Service, said. “Regulation of AI chatbots should shift toward preventing design elements that foster dependence and subordination in advance and toward institutionalizing corporate responsibility.”

BY IM SOUNG-BIN, HAN CHAN-WOO [[email protected]]