Are there benefits or risks to having an AI companion?

Robert Mahari, now associate director of Stanford’s CodeX Center and one of the researchers who analyzed the ChatGPT logs, said that more research is needed to understand the potential benefits and risks of AI companionship.

Even if research can’t move as quickly as consumer adoption, there are obvious concerns. Chief among them for Mahari is the inherently unbalanced nature of AI companionship.

“I really think it’s not an exaggeration to say that for the first time in human history we have the ability to have a relationship that consists only of receiving,” he said.