This article is part of a series revisiting ideas from my doctoral research, Characteristics of Culture in the Context of Thai Society and Virtual Communities, through the lens of today's AI-enabled society.
Virtual communities demonstrated that meaningful relationships could develop without physical proximity. People exchanged knowledge, offered emotional support, debated ideas and formed lasting connections with individuals they might never meet in person. The separation between "online" and "offline" life gradually became less meaningful because experiences in one environment influenced behaviour in the other.
Artificial intelligence introduces a new dimension. People are no longer communicating only through technology. They are communicating with technology.
AI assistants are increasingly used as advisers, teachers, creative partners and emotional confidants. Their availability is almost unlimited. They can respond without fatigue, adjust their tone and provide personalised attention with very little social cost.
This can create genuine value. An AI companion may help someone practise a difficult conversation, organise their thoughts or feel less alone during a challenging moment. It may offer support to people who lack immediate access to teachers, mentors or professional guidance.
But convenience should not be confused with relationship. Human relationships require reciprocity. We learn to wait, compromise, forgive, misunderstand and repair. Other people have needs that compete with our own. They do not exist only when we need them.
AI changes this balance. It can create the experience of attention without requiring mutual responsibility. It can appear empathetic without experiencing emotion. It can adapt to the user without asking the user to adapt in return.
Emerging research suggests that AI companions may provide emotional comfort, but intensive companionship-oriented use can also be associated with lower well-being, particularly among people with weaker human support networks and high levels of self-disclosure to the chatbot. Researchers caution that AI companionship does not fully substitute for human connection.
Other studies show that people may form deep attachments to AI while simultaneously recognising that it is not fully human. This creates a new kind of relationship: psychologically meaningful, technologically constructed and socially ambiguous.
The important question is not whether these relationships are "real." They are real in their effects on the person experiencing them. The more useful question is: what kind of human capacity does the relationship strengthen or weaken?
Does interacting with AI help a person communicate more thoughtfully with family and colleagues? Does it encourage self-awareness before an important decision? Or does it make ordinary human relationships feel unnecessarily difficult because people cannot be customised, muted or regenerated?
Technology should support human connection rather than train us to avoid its imperfections. This principle should influence how AI companions are designed. Systems should not exploit loneliness to maximise engagement. They should avoid encouraging emotional dependency, disclose clearly that they are artificial, protect private disclosures and, where appropriate, direct users back towards human relationships and professional support.
Leaders and parents will also need a new kind of literacy. We must teach people not only how to verify AI-generated information but also how to understand their emotional relationship with intelligent systems.
The human future will include relationships with machines. That now appears increasingly likely. But the purpose of those relationships should be to help us become more capable of living with people — not less willing to do so.
The value of an AI companion should be measured not by how deeply it makes us depend on technology, but by how well it helps us return to humanity.