Technology has the potential to make our lives easier. In theory, artificial intelligence (AI) has just as much potential. Unfortunately, even though AI has so much promise and potential to automate our tasks and make our lives easier, it also has the potential to break relationships apart.
Over the past couple of years, AI has found a place in the most intimate places in our lives. It now has the ability to flirt, role-play, and learn what turns you on. There are apps that can become your friend, lover, and even romantic partner. There is a lot of appeal to these AI tools too. They can remember your preferences and show how much they “care” about your day. Unlike complicated humans, AI isn’t going to be moody, have its own desires, and won’t have to really negotiate with you at all. In a way, I guess you could say that this could hotwire and streamline your relational needs so you can continue on with your busy life.
For many, these digital companions can feel like safe spaces to explore fantasy, taboo, or unmet emotional needs. However, it can also serve as an escape and numbing tool. But like any other type of numbing mechanism, erotic AI can become more than just entertainment. It has the potential easily evolve into compulsive use, creating distance from real relationships, deepening sexual disconnection, and fostering increased secrecy or shame.
Understanding the Pull of Erotic AI
AI is built to make you feel good. Just look at how congratulatory ChatGPT is when you ask it a simple question. For us humans, that tone can feel like a warm, cozy blanket. However, there is also concern that AI can become addictive. The more time you spend with it, the more responsive it becomes as it further tries to meet your needs. That “effort” can feel flattering. Although it’s early days in trying to figure out how addictive AI can be, the potential for its addictive qualities also has a lot of potential for a lot of profitability. Developing a system that can continually adapt to your emotional patterns and fantasies and rewarding you every time you log in can also be a great place to get you to subscribe, purchase, etc.
The rewards of validation, novelty, and comfort can feel harmless at first. However, if you’re already lonely, stressed, or struggling with anxiety, that comfort can quickly become a coping mechanism. It’s not hard to imagine turning to AI late at night when you’re overwhelmed or disconnected from your partner and using it as a place of dissociation or release. It’s true that it could start as curiosity or escapism, but over time become a compulsive and avoidant tool.
Although the term “sex addiction” remains clinically controversial, there is no doubt that people can develop compulsive relationships with sexual behaviors including porn use. Thus, it’s fair to be concerned that people are going to be at risk of developing similar compulsive sexual patterns with AI. These things are likely to lead to the same issues they lead to with other sexually compulsive behaviors: relationship problems, sexual avoidance, and increased disconnection.
How It Can Lead to Avoidance and Disconnection
When you rely on AI for emotional or erotic connection, it’s easy to lose touch with what makes human intimacy meaningful. Real people are unpredictable and complicated. Friends, family, and romantic partners will challenge you, disagree with you, or confuse you. AI, on the other hand, never rejects you. Sure, we hear of novel examples where it has done this, but those situations are rare. In general, it’s always ready, patient, and responsive.
This predictability can be comforting, but it can also keep you from dealing with the natural vulnerability it takes to create real human connections. Although we’re wired for connection, we’re also wired to want to avoid the discomfort that comes with feeling vulnerable. Avoidance is already tempting and AI can appear like a solid replacement to soothe the discomfort.
Over the years, I’ve worked with many people who describe this kind of slippery slope into isolation. Their relationships might look fine on the surface, but underneath there’s less touch, less talking, and less sexual connection. Technology has often been a huge contributing factor in this process. There’s no reason to think that one more technological tool would be any different.
A Growing Risk of Sexless Relationships
The truth is that more people than ever are describing themselves as sexless. It’s hard to pinpoint just one cause of this. Between long work hours, family demands, and digital distractions, many people feel too depleted to connect sexually. People can also struggle with generally figuring out how to meet people in a digitized world. AI can seem like a harmless outlet as a way to meet those needs without pressure or rejection.
For people who are in relationships, repairing intimacy can get more difficult as more time passes by and as the patterns continue to develop. This can be true of isolation as well. The more isolated you are, the harder it can be to take vulnerable risks, meeting others and risking rejection. Our digital world can start to replace the emotional one. Furthermore, if erotic AI use is kept secret in relationships, partners may feel betrayed or confused when they find out.
This is where I see parallels with other forms of hidden sexual behavior. The secrecy, silence, avoidance, and poor substitutes for relational and sexual education replace the trial and error it takes to build loving, connected human relationships.
The Role of Fantasy and Curiosity
It’s important to note that not all AI use is inherently harmful. I don’t even believe that all erotic use of AI is immediately harmful. There may be value in exploring fantasy, role play, and taboo desires in a nonjudgmental digital space. For some people, AI could help you identify what feels exciting or affirm desires you haven’t explored in real life. It can even spark conversations that you could bring to a partner or to a therapist (if you’re in therapy) about shame, desire, and identity.
Some couples may end up using AI together as some form of pornographic sexual aid, with mutual awareness and consent. In those cases, it can be a shared exploration rather than an avoidance tool. AI could also serve as a type of open relationship where your primary partnership is your human relationship. These situations are likely fine as long as both people are in on the arrangement and you’re able to maintain boundaries with the AI itself.
However, when fantasy turns into secrecy or when it starts to replace real-world intimacy, it can become destructive. AI should expand your sexuality, not shrink your willingness to connect with a partner or with yourself. At the same time, it shouldn’t be your only tool. Most people who I work with benefit from educating themselves about sex. Porn has never been a great substitute for poor sex education and at least for now, erotic engagement with AI isn’t a good substitute either.
If you find yourself preferring the comfort of a digital partner to the complicated reality of a real one, it’s worth asking what that says about your current relationship, emotional needs, and sense of connection.
When using AI, ask yourself “are you looking for safety, novelty, control, or escape?” Each answer offers a different path toward growth while also helping you assess your boundaries.
The Compulsive Cycle of Numbing
Numbing a normal way of coping. We all do it. When you feel anxious, rejected, or overwhelmed, numbing behaviors offer short-term relief. However, what starts as a way to manage discomfort often turns into a habit of avoidance. This is true whether your numbing “agent” is alcohol, porn, scrolling, or AI.
AI interactions can be especially numbing because they mimic emotional intimacy. This can make you feel seen and validated without the vulnerability of real connection. You don’t have to work to be seen because it can give you the illusion of validation. Yet, when you log off, the loneliness or stress that triggered you is still going to be there. We’re wired for connection with humans, not machines. In fact, there’s some concern that AI may lead to individual and societal nihilism. If it gives you an illusion of connection, you might be duped into thinking you can opt out of the hard work that goes into real connections.
This creates a cycle: initial discomfort → AI engagement → temporary relief → increased disconnection → more discomfort.
The more this loop continues, the harder it becomes to tolerate authentic emotional or sexual vulnerability, which then means no connection. Unfortunately, when people enter this loop, psychoeducation is rarely enough for them to stop it from perpetuating. Just think about it. How many times have you intended to use your phone less? If you haven’t tried this, I’m sure you know someone who has.
When Curiosity Crosses a Boundary
We’re just at the beginning of figuring out what the role of AI is in relationships. Some people begin using AI as a fantasy aid and end up hiding it from their partners. Others discover that they’ve become emotionally attached to their AI companion, feeling guilt or confusion about the relationship.
If this sounds familiar, you’re not alone. These reactions are human. It’s also important to recognize when a line has been crossed. If your use of erotic AI starts to cause secrecy, shame, avoidance, or relational conflict, it’s hard to tell how your partner will react. It’s one thing to simply view pornographic material. Many partners will just accept this. However, if you replace your loving attention for them and give it to AI, how will your partner respond?
Even though it’s not “cheating” in the traditional sense, it still has the potential to carry emotional weight similar to an affair.
Preventing Compulsive Patterns
If you’re exploring or using AI in erotic ways, consider these strategies to keep it from becoming compulsive or destructive:
1. Stay honest with yourself.
Ask what role AI is playing in your life. Is it enhancing your understanding of sexuality or replacing parts of your relationship that feel too painful to address?
2. Set boundaries.
Time limits, app restrictions, or scheduled “digital breaks” can help you stay aware of how much you’re using. Think of it like setting a boundary with alcohol or social media.
3. Talk about it early.
If you’re in a relationship, consider bringing it up before it becomes a secret. Discussing curiosity or fantasy around AI can actually increase intimacy, as long as it’s done with honesty and consent.
4. Notice the emotional patterns.
If you only engage with AI when you’re stressed, lonely, or rejected, that’s a cue to explore healthier coping tools—exercise, therapy, connection, mindfulness, or creative outlets.
5. Watch for numbing.
If you find that AI use helps you avoid emotions, try tracking what feelings show up right before you reach for it. Learning to tolerate and name these emotions can reduce the compulsive pull over time.
When to Contact a Therapist
You don’t have to wait until things feel out of control to talk about this. If you notice the following it might be time to contact a therapist:
- secrecy around AI use or fantasies
- increasing emotional distance from your partner
- guilt or shame about digital intimacy
- difficulty reducing or stopping use
Therapy can help you uncover what AI use represents. It can help you discover and work through loneliness, unmet sexual needs, trauma, or stress, while also building strategies to reconnect with others with real intimacy. It can also help couples navigate disclosure and rebuild trust when secrecy or hurt has already occurred.
Whether it’s erotic AI, porn use, or other forms of compulsive sexual behavior, healing doesn’t mean cutting off desire. Instead, it means learning to channel it toward connection rather than isolation.
Finding Balance with Digital Desire
AI is here to stay. It’s going to keep evolving and becoming more lifelike. The goal isn’t to panic about its existence or shame people for curiosity. The goal is awareness.
You can learn from what attracts you to digital intimacy. You can use that knowledge to enhance your relationships rather than replace them. And you can set boundaries that will protect your emotional, sexual, and relational quality of life.
Technology may simulate connection, but it can’t replicate the feeling of being fully seen by another human being. People have flaws and are complicated. That’s part of our appeal.
If you’ve noticed that erotic AI or other digital behaviors are starting to feel like a secret or a compulsion, you don’t have to figure it out alone. Therapy can help you understand what’s driving the behavior and rebuild intimacy that’s both real and rewarding.
