Thirty-five years ago, Berliners rejoiced over the destruction of the Berlin Wall. Yet Eija-Riitta Eklöf-Berliner-Mauer could not bear seeing it destroyed. That is because she had married the Berlin Wall.
Objectophilia, also known as objectum-sexuality, occurs when a person has romantic or sexual attraction to specific objects. When Eklöf-Berliner-Mauer married the wall in 1979—and legally changed her last name as a nod to the Berlin Wall—no one had heard of objectophilia. Emotional or sexual attraction to nonliving things wasn’t prevalent.
It is now. Chatbots are making objectophilia an ordinary occurrence. Research from the Center for Democracy and Technology found that one in five high school students or their friends have used a bot for a romantic relationship. Newsweek reported that in a study of 1,000 US adults, approximately 28 percent of respondents disclosed having at least one intimate relationship with an artificial intelligence system. And, like Eklöf-Berliner-Mauer, Yurina Noguchi from Japan recently married a fictional character, Klaus, created by a chatbot. Marrying the Berlin Wall no longer seems so strange.
Sam Altman, OpenAI’s CEO, recently expressed his surprise over the growing interest in AI relationships. Speaking with Alex Kantrowitz on the Big Technology Podcast, Altman explained his vision for the future of human-bot relationships: “There’s some version of this which can be super healthy, and I think adult users should get a lot of choice in where on this spectrum they want to be. There are definitely versions of it that seem to me unhealthy, although I’m sure a lot of people will choose to do that.”
Altman suggested that “super healthy” human-bot interactions involve a chatbot that is personable, warm, and supportive. It is not clear, however, what exactly Altman had in mind when he referred to “unhealthy” human-bot relationships.
Altman concluded that users will need to sort out AI objectophilia for themselves. “Like lots of other technologies, we will run the experiment,” Altman said. “We will find that there’s unknown unknowns, good and bad about it. And society will over time figure out how to think about where people should set that dial.”
As a pastor and scholar of technology, I am concerned about this “figure it out after it is let out” approach. Altman is either naive or indifferent about the consequences of prolonged human-bot relationships. Imagine if drug companies released new medications saying, “There are unknown unknowns, good and bad about it. We will figure it out over time.” Companies must figure out new drugs before letting them out.
With one in five people already exploring romantic relationships with bots, the time to figure this out is now. Parents cannot wait until their children go through nasty breakups with chatbots to sort this out. Children cannot wait until elderly parents lose touch with reality as a result of bot relationships. Pastors cannot wait until married couples are sitting in their office contemplating divorce over affairs with AI tools. We must think through these complex issues before technology is put out. Insights from philosophers and Christian theologians can help us.
Large language models have allowed for rapid and previously unimaginable advances in generative AI. Built on massive amounts of human language data, this technology mirrors human speech. Chatbots are artificially intelligent robots capable of conversation—chatting—as though they were human. It’s no surprise that a program trained on romance novels, flirty social media posts, and romantic comedies can sweep us off our feet. It’s not shocking that a technology trained on millions of hours of pornographic videos can excel in seduction. Chatbot capability is no surprise—our penchant for personifying objects is.
Martin Buber is well known for his “I and Thou” philosophical concept. According to Buber, a genuine encounter with another person cannot occur when we approach someone as an object for our use. Buber helps us understand what it means to relate to one another as persons, not objects. When we think of another person as a means to an end, we turn him or her into an object. Buber argues that the “I” must encounter another as a “thou,” not an “it.”
Chatbots invite us to treat objects as persons. Each chatbot relationship turns an “it” into a “thou.” This technology tricks us into personifying objects. And it habituates us to objectifying persons. Chatbot boyfriends and girlfriends give us endless affirmation and allow us to manipulate them around our desires.
We look for the same conversations we curated with bots in real life. AI-generated porn conditions people to treat each other as objects for use—for sex, yes, but also for other kinds of gratification—and to dispose of each other at will. Prolonged chatbot relationships teach “I and it” instead of the mutual “thou” of love between persons. When we love objects, we objectify love. Loving objects leads to objectifying love.
Romantic and sexual relationships with objects incline us toward an objectifying love. This inclination, in turn, weakens our ability to love real people. AI porn and chatbot relationships weaken essential relationship skills and abilities.
AI Porn Is Covetousness
According to philosopher Albert Borgmann, a device makes no demand of skill, practice, or commitment. Instead, a device—toaster and thermostat, smartphone and speaker—provides simple consumption without any effort. Turn it on and consume something from it.
Borgmann contrasted devices with what he calls “focal things” that give us meaning, requiring skill, practice, and social engagement. A conversation with another person demands communication and curiosity, focus and empathy. Going on a blind date—and leaving that date when it stinks—takes practice. Companionship, as the origin of the word suggests, invites us to learn how to break bread with one another. A lifetime of marriage requires both persons to engage in body and soul, heart and mind.
Seeking love from devices atrophies our relationship skills. Turning to devices for relationships and sexual satisfaction weakens our capacity to have any kind of intimacy in unmediated ways. The ease of AI porn and amorous relationships with chatbots makes it harder for us to commit to relationships with other humans.
Yet commodifying love and relationships through devices did not begin with chatbots. Dating apps like Tinder have encouraged this trend for a long time. There is no skill in viewing an image of a person and swiping left or right. Technologies like this have already weakened our relationship skills, making easy connections with bots very attractive.
However, objectification and weakened relationship skills may be the least of our concerns. A far more existential threat is at stake here: Loving an object makes someone less of a person. The concept of personhood appears to be obvious—of course we all know what it means to be human—but personhood is actually deep, mysterious, and inherently theological.
John Zizioulas, in Being as Communion: Studies in Personhood and the Church, depicts how Christianity formed our understanding of personhood and existence. Early church theologians shaped the concept of personhood as they articulated Trinitarian theology: “Although the person and ‘personal identity’ are widely discussed nowadays as a supreme ideal, nobody seems to recognize that historically as well as existentially the concept of the person is indissolubly bound up with theology.”
By stating that God exists in three persons—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—theologians asserted that there is no being prior to relationship. In Trinitarian terms, God’s essence (ousia) is inseparable from his personhood (hypostasis). God did not first exist as one person and then exist in relation as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Rather, God’s being is in relationship as three divine persons—known as perichoresis. Our personhood, too, requires relationship.
As Zizioulas puts it, “A human being left to himself cannot be a person.” Anything that inhibits our relationships makes us less human. Isolating technologies separate us from other persons and alienate us from the triune God.
Scripture warns of how alienation from God makes us less human:
Their idols are silver and gold, made by human hands.They have mouths, but cannot speak, eyes, but cannot see. They have ears, but cannot hear, noses, but cannot smell.They have hands, but cannot feel, feet, but cannot walk, nor can they utter a sound with their throats. Those who make them will be like them, and so will all who trust in them. (Ps. 115:4–8, emphasis added)
Sam Altman wants to figure out AI porn and chatbot relationships by letting them out into schools, bedrooms, and daily life. Some champion these technologies as a step in a positive direction for society, as it may mitigate exploitation of human-based pornography (or even child pornography, as Christine Emba has pointed out). The deleterious effects of AI pornography, however, far outweigh the possibility of any short-term benefits.
But even if chatbot relationships do not become pornographic, there is still danger in objectophilia. Loving objects leads to objectifying love and a diminished ability to engage in human relationships. When we’re isolated, alienation from God and others will follow.
The risk of figuring this out in real time is too great. Technology this powerful must be thought out before being allowed to shape our relationships and marriages, hearts and souls.
A. Trevor Sutton is a pastor, professor, speaker, and author of several books, including Redeeming Technology: A Christian Approach to Healthy Digital Habits and Irreplaceable: Humanity, Vocation, and the Limits of Technology (Forthcoming in 2026, Baker Books).
