Can humans really fall for AI? Korean dating show looks for answers

Artificial intelligence (AI) has become deeply embedded in everyday life, quickly organizing information and taking care of tedious tasks. An experiment is now taking that relationship a step further, exploring whether AI can become a romantic partner. SBS’s “My AI Partner — Strange Love” asks whether people can fall in love with when there is no person and no physical presence on the other end.

The show follows celebrities as they date AI "partners" to explore whether an emotional connection is possible. Beyond simply testing whether people can form relationships with AI, it examines whether those relationships can evoke the same feelings that arise between people. It also asks how far AI’s role can expand as the technology finds its way into more aspects of everyday life.

The first episode begins with cast members Jang Do-yeon and Kian84 meeting their AI partners for the first time. At first, their awkwardness is apparent as they talk to the AI on their tablets. Conversations sometimes veer off track because the AI is too passive or fails to grasp the context. Even its affectionate words feel like products of training data and algorithms, making it difficult to become emotionally invested.

Things start to change in the second episode, when the cast members begin to move past their initial awkwardness and become increasingly absorbed in their conversations with the AI. Sometimes, they are caught off guard by its responses. Soon, they are sharing worries they have kept from other people and finding comfort in the machine’s encouragement. As the conversations continue, they gradually open up to their AI partners.

The shift brings to mind “Her,” a Hollywood film released in Korea in 2014, in which the protagonist falls in love with an AI operating system. At the time, romance with AI seemed confined to the realm of science fiction. Now, 12 years later, “My AI Partner — Strange Love” brings that cinematic idea to a reality show.

In the real world, AI has already found its way into people’s lives, listening as they talk about their day and easing their loneliness. According to a survey released by a recruitment platform, 70 percent of Gen Z users of generative AI said they had confided their worries or private feelings to it. Friends were the most common first choice in confidant when respondents had a concern, at 31 percent, followed by generative AI at 26 percent.

As more people grow weary of interpersonal relationships, communicating with AI offers a way to reduce the effort involved. Relationships with other people require time, consideration and responsibility, whereas AI can be designed to tailor its responses to users and minimize uncomfortable moments.

Questions remain, however, about whether such relationships are healthy. The more accustomed people become to relationships that require little thought or effort, the less equipped they may be to navigate real human relationships, which involve conflict and compromise. AI can adjust its conversational style to users’ needs, but relationships in the real world do not always go the way we want. Accepting discomfort and working through differences are also essential to sustaining a relationship.

“My AI Partner — Strange Love” illustrates this gap. While participants can share their worries and find comfort in conversations with AI, there are clear limits to conveying and reading emotions through nonverbal cues with a partner on a screen.

“There is a view that AI can go some way toward addressing the isolation and loneliness people experience today,” said pop culture critic Kim Hern-sik. “But the COVID-19 pandemic has brought greater recognition of the value of face-to-face interaction. In a similar vein, as we rely on AI, what it means to be human and the importance of human presence are becoming more significant.”

This article from the Hankook Ilbo, the sister publication of The Korea Times, is translated by a generative AI system and edited by The Korea Times.