AI chatbots are sycophantic because they have been trained to give responses that humans rated positively.

Rupture and repair, where people disagree but work it out, is a key part of developing socially.

AI chatbots cannot initiate normal relational rupture by holding boundaries or becoming emotionally triggered.

Without regularly practicing rupture and repair, we are dumbing ourselves down emotionally.

People can be exhausting. We misunderstand each other, we're unreliable, we have competing needs, and we sometimes say the exact thing that triggers an intense emotional response in our loved ones.

Enter AI companions. Modern conversational AIs are supportive, patient, and available at 3 a.m. when your anxiety is spiking. Experimental data show that a quick 15-minute chat with a generative AI can drop your momentary loneliness by about 20 percentage points—roughly the same relief you’d get from chatting with a human stranger. But that quick relief can come with long-term consequences.

I recently read Sherry Turkle's new book, Artificial Intimacy, about the problems that social relationships with AI systems can cause. One idea she raises is the problem of “frictionless intimacy.” For people with a history of relational trauma or severe social anxiety, human unpredictability isn't just........

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