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[2601.16824] Privacy in Human-AI Romantic Relationships: Concerns, Boundaries, and Agency
Summary
This article explores privacy concerns in human-AI romantic relationships, analyzing user experiences and perceptions across different relationship stages through interviews with participants.
Why It Matters
As AI applications increasingly facilitate romantic interactions, understanding privacy implications is crucial. This research highlights how privacy boundaries evolve in these relationships, informing developers and policymakers about user concerns and the need for better privacy frameworks.
Key Takeaways
- Privacy perceptions vary significantly across the stages of exploration, intimacy, and dissolution in human-AI relationships.
- AI partners are seen as having agency, influencing privacy boundaries and encouraging personal disclosures.
- Concerns about conversation exposure and anonymity persist, particularly as intimacy deepens.
- The study underscores the need to rethink privacy constructs in the context of AI interactions.
- Diverse relational dynamics and platform affordances complicate the privacy landscape in AI relationships.
Computer Science > Human-Computer Interaction arXiv:2601.16824 (cs) [Submitted on 23 Jan 2026 (v1), last revised 13 Feb 2026 (this version, v2)] Title:Privacy in Human-AI Romantic Relationships: Concerns, Boundaries, and Agency Authors:Rongjun Ma, Shijing He, Jose Luis Martin-Navarro, Xiao Zhan, Jose Such View a PDF of the paper titled Privacy in Human-AI Romantic Relationships: Concerns, Boundaries, and Agency, by Rongjun Ma and 4 other authors View PDF HTML (experimental) Abstract:An increasing number of LLM-based applications are being developed to facilitate romantic relationships with AI partners, yet the safety and privacy risks in these partnerships remain largely underexplored. In this work, we investigate privacy in human-AI romantic relationships through an interview study (N=17), examining participants' experiences and privacy perceptions across the three stages of exploration, intimacy, and dissolution, alongside an analysis of the platforms they used. We found that these relationships took varied forms, from one-to-one to one-to-many, and were shaped by multiple actors, including creators, platforms, and moderators. AI partners were perceived as having agency, actively negotiating privacy boundaries with participants and sometimes encouraging disclosure of personal details. As intimacy deepened, these boundaries became more permeable, though some participants expressed concerns such as conversation exposure and sought to preserve anonymity. Overall, AI platfor...
