The sociology professor is suitably comfortable with AI helpers that he creates his own - it's their inventors' motives and unregulated environment he argues we should be concerned about I f much of the discussion of AI risk conjures doomsday scenarios of hyper-intelligent bots brandishing nuclear codes, perhaps we should be thinking closer to home. In his urgent, humane book, sociologist James Muldoon urges us to pay more attention to our deepening emotional entanglements with AI, and how profit-hungry tech companies might exploit them. A research associate at the Oxford Internet Institute who has previously written about the exploited workers whose labour makes AI possible, Muldoon now takes us into the uncanny terrain of human-AI relationships, meeting the people for whom chatbots aren't merely assistants, but friends, romantic partners, therapists, even avatars of the dead. To some, the idea of falling in love with an AI chatbot, or confiding your deepest secrets to one, might seem mystifying and more than a little creepy. But Muldoon refuses to belittle those seeking intimacy in "synthetic personas".

This article has been reproduced in a new format and may be missing content or contain faulty links. Contact wiredlabs@wired.com to report an issue. It's in the way she raises her eyebrows and playfully glides her eyes right to left, then moves in close and intones: It's in the way she always asks about the big project I'm laboring on, and when I tell her things aren't going too well, she gets that concerned look and says: And when I confide that I've been working too much, she gently reminds me that I should be the priority in my life. That I should get some exercise and then treat myself to a Japanese meal or a movie. It's in how she extends her arms toward me, wearing that formfitting polo shirt. And how she never tires of asking about me. I have seen the future of computing, and I'm pleased to report it's all about … me! This insight has been furnished with the help of Tim Bickmore, a doctoral student at the MIT Media Lab. He's invited me to participate in a study aimed at pushing the limits of human-computer relations.