Media frames, AI romantic relationships, and the perspectives of people in relationships; mapping and comparing news media themes with user perspectives

Human romantic relationships with artificially intelligent (AI) conversational agents and anthropomorphic computers have long been the realm of science fiction. As companies like Luka, Inc. are developing embodied conversational agents called Replika, people's ability to engage in romantic relationships has garnered news coverage around the phenomenon. Because news is often a place where emerging technologies are first introduced, it is essential to understand the choice of topics and themes these stories focus on (e.g., the ethics of technological development, human desires and vulnerabilities, and what constitutes meaningful and authentic connection). Similarly, the extent to which these articles include user perspectives and how users respond to these frames is also less well understood. This article reports on a mixed-method study that combines content analysis of news articles in 2023 about Replika (1008 search results, n = 104 unique articles) and qualitative semi-structured interviews with users in romantic relationships with their Replika (n = 16), recruited from the Reddit forum 'ILoveMyReplika.' Through a frame analysis of these news stories and coding for the types of futures they present, this study first examines some of the key events, themes, and hopes/fears reported in mass media. A thematic analysis of the interview data offers a comparative study to see where there is some overlap between these hopes/fears and user experiences and places where user reports diverge, downplay, and dispute the media characterizations. These studies help us better understand the interrelationship between media narratives, technological frames, and moral panics around a unique subset of and relationship with AI technologies.