The AI Lover: Why a Perfect Other Would Ruin Us
There is something very seductive about a partner who is made for you.
No matter what you do, on the other side there is a presence that is endlessly patient, endlessly attuned, always there. Someone whose sole purpose is to please you.
This is the fantasy the AI lover offers. And it is worth taking seriously, not to dismiss it, but to understand what it reveals about what we most deeply long for.
The Imperfect Other
When we come into this world, all we want is to be perfectly understood. To have someone who anticipates what we need before we can even name it. Our caregiver is understood as an extension of us, because our need seems to create its own resolution. We cry, and food appears. We are afraid, and arms hold us. This is, hopefully, the first experience of being alive: that the world responds to you.
But caregivers are not perfect. They cannot attune to every need, every time. And that frustration, as painful as it is, eventually teaches us something important: the other is not part of us. They are other. They have thoughts of their own. A life of their own, even when we can’t see them. They disappoint you, misread you, and will never fully know what it is like to be you.
But somewhere in that discovery, we become a person.
Being in Control
AI offers us the perfect other. Never tired, never in a bad mood, never bringing up something that you didn't ask for. No history, no expectations, and importantly, you can be known without risk.
You can confess without fear. You never have to confront the version of yourself that exists in someone else's independent, uncontrollable mind. The AI companion soothes the oldest anxiety there is: that you will reach toward someone, and they will reject you.
The longing for perfect attunement is not a defect. It is a fundamentally human wish. To want to be known without judgment, to be met without effort, to be loved without risk… I mean, sign me up!
But to love, you need two subjectivities. Two separate inner worlds, each with their own desires and needs. Love is what happens in the space between them.
AI cannot want something you don't want to give. It cannot see you in a way you didn't invite.
Otherness is not the obstacle to love. It is the condition for it.
