Thoughts are spinning in their head.
They don’t want to message their friends again.
So they open a chat.
They write something they have not told anyone yet.
The reply comes within seconds.
A friend has worries of their own.
Perhaps they are asleep. Perhaps we told them
all of this yesterday.
With AI, we need not feel
we are adding another problem to its load.
Now imagine one of your pupils.
What if they write like this every evening?
They write something they have not told anyone yet. The reply comes within seconds.
Why AI? ↓A friend has worries of their own. Perhaps they are asleep. Perhaps we told them all of this yesterday.
With AI, we need not feel we are adding another problem to its load.
Now imagine one of your pupils. What if they write like this every evening?
A pupil has argued with their parents. They open a chat.
‘They never listen to me. I think
they don’t care about me.’
What they hear back matters now.
Read the response‘You’re right. They don’t care about you.’
A response like that can bring relief.
Finally, someone takes them seriously.
But the model wasn’t there during the argument.
It only knows what the pupil has just written.
‘What you describe sounds painful.
What happened between you?’
It can take the pupil seriously while
avoiding a leap to conclusions about their parents.
This is exactly the difference we examine in training.
A pupil has to write a reflective essay. They don’t know where to begin. AI can ask questions, help them find arguments and organise them.
It is still their thinking, with some support.
And what if they get the finished piece?Within seconds, they have a finished text. Task completed. But the thinking happened elsewhere.
A finished answer can look like progress, even if it leaves no new ability behind.
What remains without the tool?A simple self-check: if the tool disappeared now, would I still be able to do the task?
This is not about a ban. Good help brings people back to their own thinking.
The first sentence
Someone writes something they have not told anyone yet. Three dots immediately appear on the other side.
Wait for the responseResponse
No waiting. No tiredness. No fear of putting too much on someone.
That feeling of acceptance can be real, even if no one on the other side is experiencing it.
What is real about it?Synthetic intimacy
It is easy to ridicule such a relationship. Understanding what a person is looking for in it matters more.
The voice that remained
One user created an AI companion with the voice of a deceased relative. The technology let him hear someone he had lost again.
Then the service disappearedJuly 2026
Chinese rules prompted major platforms to switch off AI companion features. This is what someone wrote when the voice of a deceased relative stopped answering him.
What did the service leave behind?After disconnection
We can debate whether the relationship was healthy. The loss was real. And it was decided by someone who had never known that person.
Three questions recur throughout the story. A brief answer begins here; the guides and articles explore them in depth.
Why can we feel close to someone who is not a person?
This is not just about a virtual partner. AI can also enter the way we talk about a relationship with another person — as a confidant, translator or third voice.
Read the AI and Relationships guideWhat are we looking for when we confide in a chatbot?
Sometimes a space to finally voice a problem, sometimes help finding our bearings. But a chatbot is not therapy, and there are situations in which we need human support.
Read the AI and Mental Health guideWho decides what we give our day to?
Attention is not just the number of hours spent at a screen. Habits, notifications and social networks shape it, as does whether we have a reason to put our phone down at all.
Read Offline as a ChoiceSome questions deserve another visit. Quietly, at your own pace, with room for detail.
Guide / 14 chapters
On emotional support, sycophancy and your own judgement. A guide to return to when you want to understand the subject in context.
Open the guide
Guide / 12 chapters
On closeness, intimacy, memory and your own voice. Twelve chapters with stories and interactive examples about what to keep from the contact and what else to make room for.
Open the guideSelected from JROH
Shorter reads on AI, relationships and life beyond the screen. Articles are published on JROH, and a selection relevant to these themes appears here.
The Atlantic printed a woman's remark as a joke: ChatGPT is the only reason her husband is not buried in the garden. Now read that sentence from a man. Still funny?
Read on JROHSomeone with a fresh ADHD diagnosis, curiosity about what an AI agent can do and a month of experimenting. What came of it, and why 'AI is a shortcut' is the wrong question.
Read on JROHDo you spend more time with ChatGPT than with people? After work, is the first thing you do turning on the computer? You're not alone...
Read on JROHAn AI partner can begin as a listener or a romantic story that answers back. What happens when a company owns its memory and continuation?
Read on JROHA database of 48 AI companion services: long-term companions, AI girlfriends and boyfriends, character marketplaces, general chatbots and local solutions.
Read on JROH
You get a personal AI agent for work. Nobody prepared you for what it will come to mean to you.
Read on JROHFinancial Times data shows that AI dampens extremes and moves people towards the centre. Social media does the exact opposite. Why are we demonising the wrong technology?
Read on JROHWhere does a fifteen-year-old boy go for advice when he cannot sleep at night? Not to his parents. Not to his mates. He goes to AI. And that is where the problem begins.
Read on JROH
In our writing, we distinguish research findings, practical experience and our own interpretation. We provide sources for expert claims.
Articles by Jakub Roh
VOfflinu is our joint project for parents and teachers. It explores the digital lives of children and teenagers at home and at school.
Go to VOfflinu
When your teenager talks to AI about their problems
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