
Contents
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Introduction Introduction
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Existentialist Love Existentialist Love
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Romantic Chatbots & Value Alignment Romantic Chatbots & Value Alignment
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Value Alignment with Others Value Alignment with Others
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Value Alignment with Oneself Value Alignment with Oneself
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References References
Authentic Artificial Love
Get accessDepartment of Philosophy
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Published:20 March 2025
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Abstract
There is some reason to think that romantic relationships go best when partners share the same moral, political, and religious values—when they are value-aligned. This article connects this point to the project of value alignment in AI research, in which researchers aim to design artificial intelligence systems that behave in ways that are in accordance with human values. There are good reasons to pursue the project of value alignment in connection with romantic chatbots—artificial intelligence systems designed to allow human users to simulate or replicate elements of romantic relationships that ordinarily exist only between human beings. However, this paper argues that certain types of value alignment in such systems would preclude them from entering into authentic loving relationships. Some important features of authentic love require a capacity for value misalignment between romantic partners. A romantic chatbot whose values were locked in to match those of its human user only allows for a kind of inauthentic love that does not treat the artificial partner as a person in their own right but at most makes them into a kind of tool. The arguments presented draw on the existentialist feminist views of Simone de Beauvoir and her understanding of authentic romantic love. De Beauvoir held that inauthentic loving relationships entail that certain interactions between partners lack the significance or meaning they would have in cases of authentic love, that authentic love promotes self-knowledge and reflection, and that authentic love allows individuals to accomplish projects they could not accomplish on their own, including projects of self-transformation. The article explores ways in which the project of value alignment involving romantic chatbots interferes with such things.
Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence
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