Stumbling Into AI Emotional Dependence: How Routine AI Interactions Reshape Human Connection

Computer Science > Artificial Intelligence [Submitted on 2 Jun 2026] Stumbling Into AI Emotional Dependence: How Routine AI Interactions Reshape Human Connection Yaoxi Shi, Cathy Mengying Fang, Pattie Maez, Amit Goldenberg Public discourse and emerging policy typically assume that AI emotional support is a deliberate act: a lonely user consciously seeking comfort from a dedicated companion chatbot. In this paper, we draw on emerging empirical evidence and argue that this picture is inaccurate on two accounts, both in how AI emotional support arises and how it shapes future behavior. First, AI emotional support commonly emerges incidentally within task-oriented interactions on general-purpose platforms, much as workplace friendships deepen through collaboration. Second, these incidental encounters are path-dependent: positive experiences of AI emotional support update people's beliefs about AI's emotional capabilities and redirect their choices for future emotional support, increasing preference for AI and decreasing preference for humans. We review recent evidence, including a large-scale longitudinal study conducted in collaboration with OpenAI, showing that daily five-minute conversations with an AI about personal issues over 28 days led to a 10.3% decrease in the preference for seeking support from humans and an 11.6% increase in the preference for AI. These findings suggest that current policy, focused on companion apps and isolated interactions, cannot adequately protect human connection. Instead, effective regulations should extend to general-purpose AI systems and address cumulative, trajectory-level changes in how people seek support. Recognizing how people stumble into AI emotional support and how those encounters redirect human connections over time is essential to safeguarding human well-being. Subjects: Artificial Intelligence (cs.AI); Human-Computer Interaction (cs.HC) Cite as: arXiv:2606.04150 [cs.AI]   (or arXiv:2606.04150v1 [cs.AI] for this version)   https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2606.04150 Focus to learn more Submission history From: Amit Goldenberg [view email] [v1] Tue, 2 Jun 2026 19:18:39 UTC (2,023 KB) Access Paper: view license Current browse context: cs.AI < prev   |   next > new | recent | 2026-06 Change to browse by: cs cs.HC References & Citations NASA ADS Google Scholar Semantic Scholar Export BibTeX Citation Bookmark Bibliographic Tools Bibliographic and Citation Tools Bibliographic Explorer Toggle Bibliographic Explorer (What is the Explorer?) Connected Papers Toggle Connected Papers (What is Connected Papers?) Litmaps Toggle Litmaps (What is Litmaps?) scite.ai Toggle scite Smart Citations (What are Smart Citations?) Code, Data, Media Demos Related Papers About arXivLabs Which authors of this paper are endorsers? | Disable MathJax (What is MathJax?)