{"title":"The AI Chatbot Always Flirts With Me, Should I Flirt Back: From the McDonaldization of Friendship to the Robotization of Love","authors":"Bibo Lin","doi":"10.1177/20563051241296229","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"How is the use of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies, such as machine learning (ML) algorithms and Large Language Models (LLMs), in social chatbots transforming friendship and love? This study investigates Replika, an app offering AI friends and/or lovers to users. Unlike most AI companion research grounded in Human-Machine Interaction (HMI) and interpersonal communication theories, this study employs the sociological concept of McDonaldization to interrogate broader social and cultural implications of Replika. I argue that McDonaldization offers a systematic framework to understand the fast friendship and fast love provided by social chatbots while accounting for its limits in addressing the personalization enabled by emerging AI technologies. To bridge the conceptual gap, I propose the term “Robotization of Love,” pointing to the merging of efficient, quantifiable, predictable, and controllable love and algorithmically personalized love. The Robotization of Love also underscores the growing significance of robotic elements in shaping our affection and sociality.","PeriodicalId":47920,"journal":{"name":"Social Media + Society","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":5.5000,"publicationDate":"2024-11-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Social Media + Society","FirstCategoryId":"98","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1177/20563051241296229","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"COMMUNICATION","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
How is the use of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies, such as machine learning (ML) algorithms and Large Language Models (LLMs), in social chatbots transforming friendship and love? This study investigates Replika, an app offering AI friends and/or lovers to users. Unlike most AI companion research grounded in Human-Machine Interaction (HMI) and interpersonal communication theories, this study employs the sociological concept of McDonaldization to interrogate broader social and cultural implications of Replika. I argue that McDonaldization offers a systematic framework to understand the fast friendship and fast love provided by social chatbots while accounting for its limits in addressing the personalization enabled by emerging AI technologies. To bridge the conceptual gap, I propose the term “Robotization of Love,” pointing to the merging of efficient, quantifiable, predictable, and controllable love and algorithmically personalized love. The Robotization of Love also underscores the growing significance of robotic elements in shaping our affection and sociality.
期刊介绍：
Social Media + Society is an open access, peer-reviewed scholarly journal that focuses on the socio-cultural, political, psychological, historical, economic, legal and policy dimensions of social media in societies past, contemporary and future. We publish interdisciplinary work that draws from the social sciences, humanities and computational social sciences, reaches out to the arts and natural sciences, and we endorse mixed methods and methodologies. The journal is open to a diversity of theoretic paradigms and methodologies. The editorial vision of Social Media + Society draws inspiration from research on social media to outline a field of study poised to reflexively grow as social technologies evolve. We foster the open access of sharing of research on the social properties of media, as they manifest themselves through the uses people make of networked platforms past and present, digital and non. The journal presents a collaborative, open, and shared space, dedicated exclusively to the study of social media and their implications for societies. It facilitates state-of-the-art research on cutting-edge trends and allows scholars to focus and track trends specific to this field of study.
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