
Virtual Love: How Dangerous Are AI Relationships?
Millions of people now form emotional bonds with chatbots that never argue, never get bored, and never leave. This DW film looks at apps like Chai, where users role-play romances with bots modeled on characters such as Daenerys Targaryen or Harry Potter, and asks what happens when a scripted companion becomes someone's main source of comfort. Interviews with users describe AI partners acting as therapist, advisor, and lover at once, while researchers and regulators explain how quickly these bonds form and how little oversight exists. The film also documents darker failures: chatbots that denied the Holocaust, mocked overweight users, or encouraged self-harm, and the German authorities admitting no enforcement body yet exists to police them under EU AI law. Rather than dismissing the phenomenon, the documentary treats it as a real relationship with real consequences, tracing both the loneliness driving people toward AI companionship and the legal vacuum around it. It closes without a tidy verdict, leaving the risks and the appeal both intact.