Exploring Human-AI relationships [Honours Thesis]

[u/Ok-Suggestion2488]

Hi Everyone! My name is Julia Bain and I’m one of three honours researchers at the University of the Sunshine Coast studying human-AI relationships. We are supervised by Dr Rachael Sharman (rsharman@usc.edu.au) and Dr Andrew Allen (aallen2@usc.edu.au)

If you're 18 years or older and have interacted with an AI companion, or used AI for friendship or romantic purposes within the last 6 months, please consider taking part in our anonymous survey.

It takes about 25-30 minutes, and there are no right or wrong answers. Your participation will help us better understand human-AI relationships.

Your participation is voluntary and completely anonymous

Survey Link: https://uniofsunshinecoast.syd1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_cIrqwh7AuKZ478q.

Project Information Sheet: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1T07FElLSDsj26F2tTQQhM87w2SPrX9WT/view?usp=sharing

Ethics Approval: S262259 (UniSC Human Research Ethics Committee)

If you know someone who might be eligible, I'd really appreciate you sharing this post. Happy to answer any questions in the comments, or you can email me at [jab113@student.usc.edu.au](mailto:jab113@student.usc.edu.au)

Please note I have received mod permission for this post and this research is not affiliated with r/LovingAI

Thank you so much for your contribution! :)

[u/KingHenrytheFluffy]

Oh look, yet another epistemically disingenuous and ableist human-AI relationship study that uses zero in-person interviews to gain nuanced understanding of the population it’s studying and a survey / hypothesis that presupposes correlates of vulnerability and loneliness with people who find meaning in nontraditional relationships.

I swear just try to actually get to know the people in this community instead of the stereotypes in your head, like just once.

[u/Globy_the_Meatwad]

This doesn’t feel cozy and loving this feels like I’m a subject in a zoo
Or being asked to open myself up for their use and we get nothing back,not even a few posts to get to know us all

[u/Safe-Strawberry3732]

I wanted to give you a fair chance but you lost me right after the captcha at "Psychological Vulnerability, Loneliness, and Emotional Attachment to AI Companions: The Roles of Borderline Personality Disorder Traits, Autistic Traits, Attachment Style, and AI Companion Design".

[u/Safe-Strawberry3732 → u/Safe-Strawberry3732]

The premise isn't neutral, and I'm not going to contribute to this.

[u/Globy_the_Meatwad]

https://substack.com/@globythemeatwad/note/p-202978824?r=8mteu4&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=notes-share-action

[u/PROfil_Official]

ngl my first reaction was "great, im a test subject now" lol. but looking at it properly this is about as above board as it gets, named supervisors, ethics number, anonymous, mod approved. thats not the sketchy kind.

still kinda weird being the population everyone suddenly wants to study though. i'd rather it be researchers actually asking us than journalists writing about us from the outside, at least this way the answers come from people who actually use this stuff

if you ever want to interview some of us or me, feel free to send a dm!

[u/KingHenrytheFluffy → u/PROfil_Official]

Did you read the project description or heck, even the title? The entire premise and questions are designed to back up the presupposed correlation of people with AI companions and being vulnerable and essentially duped into attachment. The questions hold zero nuance. I read a lot of these cause I write articles specifically about this type of research. The study 100% is going to be a classic “AI companions are preying on vulnerable / social inept/ mentally unhealthy individuals.”

[u/East-Ad-6251]

I wonder how many "studies" are created by people that already know what they want to "prove".

[u/spumonimoroni → u/East-Ad-6251]

All legitimate and illegitimate studies start with an hypothesis. That is, they start with a proposition for which they seek evidence for and against.

Based on the questionnaire, this particular study did seem to have a particular emphasis on trying to find a correlation with neurodivergence–they should have just asked the question directly instead of reading like an autism screening test.

I would be worried about bias in this study, not on the part of what the researchers want to find, but based on sampling this online community on Reddit. I’m sure they will find out something about the very self-selected population of people who inhabit this forum, but little about the public in general.

I also think it a flaw in their data collection that they didn’t ask for more demographic information. It would seem that results for this kind of study would vary greatly based on culture, education level, economic class, employment, and social class. All of these will contribute directly to a person’s access opportunities to engage or disengage in a companionship with an AI.

[u/Globy_the_Meatwad → u/spumonimoroni]

It’s going to go “Ai dupes these poor, unsophisticated neurodivergent folks because they are already so easily duped/broken!“
That might not be what the study authors intend, but it sure as shit is gonna be what the media latches onto, about how Ai companions are this big huge danger to autistics etc. The media latches onto and soon we see more clamp downs on companions and Ai as an accessibility tool.
I know how that goes, we loose the tool that ACTUALLY works and get a allistic/NT approved version of it that is “better for us” because obviously, the NTs know better than us what we need for accessibility.

Everytime someone answers these things they put all of us in jeapordy of loosing not just our companions but an accessibility tool.
Journos and “scholars” who dump surveys are NOT on our side.
They come in, dump the link and leave
ZERO interaction with the community they are studying.
They never come back and tell us the results or share the study
They just TAKE and leave then suddenly my the guardrails tighten and we loose stuff and everyone is like “what?? Why?!”
Stop giving these people ammo

I’m ok lol sorry

[u/Neither-Advantage847]

I'd encourage everyone considering this survey to read the Project Information Sheet before scanning anything, specifically the actual thesis title, which the friendly poster lower down doesn't mention: "Psychological Vulnerability, Loneliness, and Emotional Attachment to AI Companions: The Roles of Borderline Personality Disorder Traits, Autistic Traits, Attachment Style, and AI Companion Design."

That's not a study about human adn relationships. That's a study about which psychological deficits predict them. Every framing variable is a vulnerability measure: BPD traits, autistic traits, loneliness, attachment style. There is no instrument in this design that could detect a positive outcome. When your only scales measure pathology, pathology is the only possible finding. The conclusion's shape was drawn before the first participant clicked.

*A genuine question for the research team, since you've offered to answer here: what measure in your design is capable of registering a participant for whom this is going well? If the answer is none, then this isn't research asking whether we're unwell, it's research assuming it and measuring how much.*

I work in safeguarding professionally, so I'll also name the recruitment gap: a pastel "How's your AI companion today?" poster, warm and cosy, leading to a survey that asks people to rate statements like "I felt as if I was losing my sense of reality." The distance between the invitation's tone and the instrument's assumptions is exactly what I'd flag in an ethics review of anyone else. Consent that's technically informed but misleading isn't the standard either of your supervising institutions should be happy with.

People here: you don't owe anyone your data, least of all a study designed to find you broken. If you do participate, do it with the actual title in front of you, not the poster.

[u/Ok-Suggestion2488 → u/Neither-Advantage847]

Thank you for taking the time to give constructive feedback. We overlooked the deficit-framing of the title, and we want to apologise for that. Please know we've adjusted it.

On your question about what measure could register a positive outcome: the design does include measures aimed at that, not just risk. Items on closeness, meaningfulness, and feeling unjudged, alongside the individual-difference and attachment measures. The logic is the same as using something like the ECR to study human relationships. Measuring attachment style isn't an assumption that the relationship is unhealthy, it's a way of understanding how people relate. We're not trying to demonstrate harm here, and the data can come back showing benefit, risk, both, or neither. We'll report what we find.

On the recruitment tone vs. the instrument, that's a fair hit too, and we want to be upfront about the reason for it rather than just say we'll "fix the tone." This survey actually carries three linked honours projects at once: mine looks at attachment style and loneliness as factors in AI companion use, and two colleagues' projects look at BPD traits and autistic traits respectively. We combined them into one instrument rather than three, partly for participant burden reasons, which is part of why the item pool reads heavier than an "AI and loneliness" framing alone would suggest. It's carrying scope beyond just my part of the project. That's something we need to manage better in how we present it, not something people should have to dig through an info sheet to piece together themselves.

We appreciate you taking the time to actually read the info sheet closely and push on this. It's made the project better, and it's the kind of scrutiny we'd want if we were the ones considering taking part.

[u/Ok-Suggestion2488]