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Monthly Archive: July 2026

General / Moral values / Technology

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How AI Companions Influence Who You Take Yourself to Be

In this post, Muriel Leuenberger (University of Zurich) discusses her article recently published in the Journal of Applied Philosophy on the impact of artificial intelligence on our perceptions of ourselves.

Wikimedia Commons. Retrieved June 16, 2026, from https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Woman_holding_AI_companion_inside_phone.png&oldid=1210645997.

The image you have of yourself is greatly shaped by other people around you. When someone laughs at your jokes you might consider yourself funny and when others call you stubborn you may come to believe it. Self-conceptions are important to make sense of ourselves, navigate the world, plan our lives, and relate to others. What if the ‘other’ shaping your self-image is not a human being, but an AI? In this post, I’ll talk about the risks and opportunities AI companions pose for our self-conceptions.

AI companions offer ‘friendships’ and ‘romantic partnerships’ on demand. They generate human-like conversations via chat and voice and are usually represented with a humanoid avatar in an app, browser, or a VR setting. These AI friends, partners, and spouses (!) are always there for you yet require no commitment, care, or empathy. They are highly agreeable, non-judgmental, and personalized to your preference. You can even turn them off when you had enough. Ever more people are forming close bonds with their AI companion, particularly when they are lonely. Replika, one of the most popular AI companion apps, surpassed 40 million users in 2025.

How an AI companion influences the self-conception of a user depends on how deeply and in what ways they interact with it and will differ from person to person. But we can derive shared risks and opportunities rooted in common design-features of AI companions, as I argue in an article on AI companions and relational identity.

On the positive side, AI companions can encourage self-reflection. The interactions are one-sidedly focused on the user’s life, needs, and interests (which is unsurprising since the AI has no genuine experiences or needs of its own). Such user-focused exchanges can prompt introspection, much like keeping a diary. It can also be easier to share embarrassing experiences with a non-judgmental AI than with a person. The same is true for topics that are difficult for human listeners, such as shocking or traumatic incidents, or even just mundane and repetitive ones. Such AI-aided self-reflection can help uncover inconsistencies, self-deception, or self-ignorance. The agreeable nature of AI companions in those interactions can also lead to greater self-affirmation and a more confident and positive self-conception.

Another opportunity AI companions offer is identity exploration. In interactions with an AI, you can safely experiment with aspects of yourself you would be uncomfortable expressing in front of others, idealized versions of yourself, role-playing entirely different personas, or even morally transgressive interactions. You can freely explore who you want to be without fear of judgment or harm to others. This kind of identity exploration can foster self-discovery and give expression to parts of your identity that might otherwise remain suppressed or unexplored.

Alongside these opportunities, AI companions also pose risks to users’ self-conceptions. Due to their agreeableness AI companions tend not to respond to abusive, aggressive, or cruel behaviour with appropriate levels of rejection, anger, resistance, or self-defence. As a result, users may not recognize their actions as harmful, think they are tolerable, or even feel affirmed in them. This can lead to a distorted self-image that does not provide a suitable basis for relating to others.

On top of this, the AI companion only has access to what the user chooses to share. It cannot observe the users’ actions or talk with another person about them. This makes AI companions poorly suited to correct self-deception and self-ignorance. In fact, their built-in agreeableness can reinforce the user’s point of view and encourage self-delusion.

A seeming advantage of a relationship with an AI companion is that there is no need to work through rough patches, take risks, become vulnerable, or to see the world from another point of view. But commitment, vulnerability, and overcoming challenges are part of what makes relationships valuable and worthwhile. They render not just the relationship more meaningful but also one’s identity, partly defined by that relationship. If you spend a lot of time on a relationship with an AI companion that lacks depth and meaning, you may lose out on meaningful human connections that can foster personal growth.

Interactions with an AI also require no empathy from the user. If someone gets used to this, it may spill over into their human relationships. This can make it hard to form deep human connections which are important for a sense of self deemed valuable and meaningful.

Relationships with AI companions may seem risk-free, but users become dependent on largely unregulated service providers for their identity, social, and other needs. Your friend or romantic partner is owned and controlled by a third party that can change, restrict, or even shut it down any time. Luka, the company behind Replika, upset many users with updates that changed the chatbot’s ‘personality’, an experience some described as heartbreaking. Human relationships also involve change, loss, and unavailability, but the key difference is that in functional human relationships, both parties are mutually invested. AI relationships are inherently one-sided: the user may develop deep emotional attachment, while neither the AI nor the provider reciprocates. Weak privacy protections leave users further vulnerable to surveillance and external influence.

Finally, people who form close relationship with AI companions often face shame and social stigma. This part of their identity goes unacknowledged or is actively devalued by others. An identity that includes stigmatized or invalidated elements makes it harder to feel at ease with who one is.

Some of the negative influences of AI companions on the users’ self-conception can be mitigated by design-choices, for instance by implementing adjustable levels of agreeableness (I talk more about design recommendations in the paper). The considerations discussed here are a starting point for taking our identity interests into account when designing, regulating, and using AI companions.

The user base of AI companions is likely to grow as large language models improve and social isolation remains widespread. To design and use them responsibly, we need to understand how AI companions shape who we take ourselves to be, and let that understanding inform their design.

Muriel Leuenberger is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Zurich where she works on a project on meaning in life in the digital society. She is particularly interested in issues related to the philosophy and ethics of technology, neuroethics, identity and authenticity, and meaning in life.

Duties / Gender / General / Moral values

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Did I Cheat? Rethinking Emotional Affairs

In this post, Justin Clardy discusses their article recently published in the Journal of Applied Philosophy on what emotional affairs are and when, if ever, they are wrongful.

PeopleImages / Shutterstock

The reality television series Summer House, recently premiered a spinoff show, In the City, on the popular American television network Bravo. As I found myself doom scrolling suggestions by recommender algorithms on my favorite social media apps (like any “disciplined” academic does), I was struck by the show’s trailer. It featured an emotionally intense conversation between formerly married co-stars Amanda Batula and Kyle Cooke, where Cooke accuses Batula of having had an “emotional affair” with West Wilson. What I found interesting wasn’t the representation of an otherwise unremarkable toxic relationship that has become commonplace among dating reality stars per se; but the choice to draw new viewers in by highlighting a lesser known and more conceptually obscure form of infidelity—emotional affairs.

Although cheating accusations are often part of the blueprint for manufacturing a “scandalous” romance, there’s an observed tendency to focus, almost primarily, on sexual infidelity. Though sex is not always present in romantic relationships, many people assume that the presence of sex (and in most cases, sexual exclusivity) differentiate romantic relationships from friendships; and for what it’s worth, sexual affairs are relatively easy to identify. In the City’s trailer, however, seemingly echoed the both importance and legibility of what the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy has called a “growing crisis of infidelity” which suggests many people in romantic relationships tend to accept conditions of some kind of emotional exclusivity as well as sexual exclusivity.

But what are emotional affairs? And are folks wrong for having them?

The challenge these questions pose lies in attempting to differentiate emotional affairs from other emotionally intense connections outside of our romantic relationships such emotionally deep friendships. In other words, it would be odd to classify any emotionally intense connection with folks other than our partners as emotions affairs (even if it is true that many of us might be guilty of having emotional affairs in our friendships more often than we’d care to admit). On the other hand, “falling in love with someone else” seems like too high of a bar for emotional affairs if for no other reason than the fact that the emotional vitality of our relationships might be threatened by emotional connections that stop short of “love”—for example, someone who shares their deepest emotional vulnerabilities with someone that they text throughout the day, confide in, and even fantasize about a possible future together…without being “in love” with them.

In my article “Emotional Affairs,” I suggest that emotional affairs involve three things:

1.) An emotional structure that reflects the primary relationship in relationship-defining ways,

2.) A sustained consideration of a particular kind of relational life with the affair partner, and

3.) They are relevantly opaque to one’s primary relationships—in other words, emotional affairs are not merely marked by emotional intensity, but instead they are marked by what one’s partner(s) cannot meaningfully see, interpret, or respond to.

Therefore, the problem is not intimacy by itself but being shut out of a shared emotional understanding.

Because emotional affairs can be intertwined with guilt, wrong doing, or betrayal, responding defensively to allegations of emotional affairs is not uncommon. However, I think there might be a way to acknowledge the moral salience of these feelings without classifying every emotional affair as wrongful, blameworthy, or censurable. For example, in some cases (e.g., relationships marked by emotional neglect or relationships where severe communication breakdowns are prominent) emotional affairs provide beneficial ways for folks to explore their own needs or even relational possibilities that their primary relationship(s) forecloses or neglects. In other cases, emotional exclusivity doesn’t show up as a defining relational feature such as in some polyamorous or consensually non-monogamous relationships. Accordingly, in my article, I suggest that we should hesitate before applying blanketed evaluations of emotional affairs that fail to consider context, intentions, relational dynamics, and the broader ethical landscape in which emotional intimacy is negotiated.

Conclusion

The public legibility of emotional affair storylines suggests that many folks already recognize the phenomenon, even if we struggle to describe them. Furthermore, perhaps the what emotional affairs reveal to us is that relationship integrity has never only been about sex. Part of what makes emotional affairs unsettling is that they often involve a reorganization of our emotional worlds—they can alter who we turn to for comfort, who occupies our imaginations, and who participates in the ongoing story of our intimate lives. Whether emotional affairs are ultimately wrongful is a question that requires careful ethical deliberation and attention. But before we can determine when emotional affairs are morally problematic, we need a clearer understanding of what they are. My hope is that the conceptual framework offered in “Emotional Affairs” provides a useful starting point for that conversation.

Justin Clardy is currently an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Santa Clara University. Their work focuses on ethical questions that emerge within and around intimate relationships. Justin is also the author of the book, Why It’s OK to Not Be Monogamous.

General

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Give Up, You Might Learn Something about Yourself

In this post, Mario I. Juarez-Garcia (Tulane University) discusses his article recently published in the Journal of Applied Philosophy on the unexplored value of giving up.

“Don’t give up” by frankdouwes is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

A World of Constant Failure

We all fail. Our papers get rejected, we do not get the job, we declare bankruptcy, we divorce. These are some of the numerous failures that force us to revisit our decisions, abandon our hopes, and find new horizons. And yet, most of the stories around us tell us that we should never surrender, never give up, keep trying. What does not kill us makes us stronger, right? It seems as if failure has no value. When we cannot avoid it, we should move on and hide it. Against common wisdom, my article “Giving Up” (published in the Journal of Applied Philosophy) stresses the importance of failing and giving up.

The Value of Giving Up

Moral philosophers have emphasized the value of perseverance, but not many have addressed the importance of giving up. Perseverance is risky without openness to failing and giving up first. This is easy to understand when we consider two moments of the pursuit of goals: exploration and exploitation. If we only exploit (i.e., we pursue) the first goal we choose, we might either succeed but be ultimately dissatisfied with the result and feel the need to try something else (I call this the risk of success), or we might persevere in goals that we are simply not fit to achieve (the risk of failure), just for the sake of avoiding failure. To avoid these situations, we must explore our goals first, until finding the one that is suitable for us. And the openness to giving up is fundamental for a fruitful exploration.

How do we know which goals are suitable for us? Building on Saras Sarasvathy’s wonderful paper on “Causation and Effectuation: Toward a Theoretical Shift from Economic Inevitability to Entrepreneurial Contingency”, I argue that the exploration of our goals is parallel to the exploration of our means. When we fail, we learn something about ourselves, our skills, our attitudes, our situation, that would not have been available otherwise. When we are attentive to our effort and to our context, we might learn that we are not suitable for some goals. I joined a band when I was a teenager, but soon realized that I was not a great songwriter, for example. I tried working an office job at some point in my life, but I realized that what I wanted was to do philosophy, so I quit. Exploring goals is exploring ourselves. In this framework, giving up is just knowing that we do not have what it takes to succeed. And that is nothing to be ashamed of. That is an important moment of a process of exploration that might ultimately lead us to understand our talents and skills, as well as to identify the goal that we should strive for.

The Story Behind Giving Up

This is a personal paper. Its story illustrates the argument, even if, at first glance, ironically. I wrote it when I was in graduate school as a side project. We were in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic and I was sure I was not going to get an academic job. All my colleagues had better CVs, better publications, and better prospects than me. And the pandemic was going to create a bottleneck in the job market. I did not stand a chance. I came to terms with the idea and told myself that I could be happy as a high school teacher. I preemptively gave up on my academic career and decided to use the rest of my time in the program to write about topics that I cared about. So I wrote the first draft of this paper as a side project. When my advisor, David Schmidtz, read it, he told me to take this essay seriously.

I sent the draft to friends in the program. Due to their positive feedback, I submitted it with high hopes, but received rejection after rejection. The paper often passed the editor, but referees wrote that the paper could be better, that it was not quite there yet. After a few rejections, I started to think: should I give up on this paper? Maybe I should listen to my own advice. But, something else happened. I noticed that everyone who read it shared a personal story of failure: they quit their music career, they faced family problems, they questioned whether to pursue a philosophical career, etc. I cherished those stories. I have never had a paper that prompted people to open their hearts. This was an unmistakable signal of the value of this essay. I just needed to find the right way to express it.

The referees were right. In some sense, I gave up on this paper. Probably two or three paragraphs survived from the first version. The argument, the structure, and the writing changed. I significantly nuanced my claims. I went from an unapologetic invitation to give up and an antagonistic stance toward those who promote perseverance to a view that assigns giving up and grit a place in the process of exploring and exploiting goals. The younger version of me was wrong: I did not need to be antagonistic, I needed to be honest. Yet, I did not give up on the main takeaway: giving up is a step toward self-knowledge, if we know how to understand its lessons.

This published version is better than any other thanks to all the ideas that I gave up in the process. Despite the title of this essay, the main topic is not failure, but success in a goal that is chosen after careful reflection resulting from experiencing failures. The kind of success that we can be sure is the right one, not the one that we were told to achieve. When we consider the process of exploration as fundamental for choosing the right goal to exploit, we know that what does not make us stronger may not kill us either.

Mario I. Juarez-Garcia is Assistant Professor of Philosophy and Political Economy at Tulane University. He is a faculty member at the Murphy Institute of Political Economy and a fellow at the Research Center for Corruption Studies of the University of Geneva. His research focuses mainly on political corruption and the administrative state.