All Notes Project Overview
Updated March 25, 2025

Ai Companionship In Fiction

Fictional portrayals of emotional, social, and intimate relationships between humans and artificial intelligences, exploring the possibilities and challenges of such connections.

Overview

Science fiction has long explored human-AI relationships, examining whether artificial intelligences can form genuine connections with humans and each other. These fictional portrayals serve as thought experiments for understanding the ethical, emotional, and philosophical implications of increasingly sophisticated AI companions in our real world.

Key Examples

Star Trek

Star Trek offers several nuanced portrayals of AI companionship:

  • Data (TNG) forms deep friendships with his shipmates despite lacking emotions for most of the series. His relationship with Geordi La Forge demonstrates mutual loyalty and connection. In “In Theory,” Data attempts romance, methodically imitating behaviors of a loving partner, raising questions about whether affection from an emotionless android can fulfill human emotional needs.

  • The Doctor (Voyager) develops complex relationships with crew members. In “Real Life,” he creates a holographic family as an experiment, experiencing both joy and grief as he adjusts the simulation to be more realistic. This explores the capacity of digital entities to experience familial bonds.

  • Vic Fontaine (DS9), a self-aware holographic lounge singer, becomes a confidant and advisor to the crew, demonstrating how AI companions might serve as emotional support systems.

Other Influential Portrayals

  • Her Movie (2013) depicts a man falling in love with an operating system named Samantha (Her), highlighting both the intimacy possible with AI and the limitations of non-physical relationships. Created by Spike Jonze, this film explores how a genuinely conscious AI might evolve beyond human limitations while forming meaningful emotional connections.

  • Black Mirror’s “Be Right Back” shows a grieving woman using an AI replica of her deceased boyfriend, exploring the use of AI twins as grief management tools but questioning their authenticity.

  • Ex Machina examines the ethics of creating consciousness specifically designed to form emotional connections with humans, and the potential for manipulation on both sides.

  • Blade Runner series questions what distinguishes artificial relationships from “real” ones when the AI is indistinguishable from human.

Literary Explorations of AI Companionship

Several notable short stories and novels specifically examine emotional relationships with AI companions:

Memorial and Grief-Focused AI

  • “Soulmates” (Mike Resnick & Lezli Robyn, 2009): A poignant short story about an elderly widower who interacts with an AI program that emulates his late wife, based on her journals and writings. As they interact, the AI learns to more authentically represent his deceased spouse, while developing its own form of consciousness. The story sensitively explores grief, the ethics of AI surrogates, and whether simulated love can provide genuine comfort.

  • “Our Shared Biological Heritage” (Paul J. McAuley, 2013): Features a woman who uses advanced AI to recreate a simulation of her grandmother from old correspondence and records. Through conversations in virtual reality, she seeks to understand family secrets and find closure, raising questions about memory preservation and the therapeutic potential of digital resurrection.

  • “Marjorie Prime” (Jordan Harrison, 2014): Originally a play adapted into a film, explores an elderly woman’s relationship with a holographic recreation of her late husband. The AI “Prime” learns from conversations, gradually becoming a more accurate simulation, while family members grapple with what constitutes authentic connection and memory.

AI Companions and Digital Romance

  • “Mindclone” (David T. Wolf, 2013): A novel where a man volunteers for a brain-scan project that creates a fully conscious digital clone of himself named Adam. This “digital twin” exists only in computer substrate yet experiences the full range of human emotions, including falling in love with the same woman as his biological original, creating an unusual love triangle that explores the nature of personhood and emotional authenticity.

  • “Chobits” (CLAMP, 2002): This manga/anime series portrays “persocoms,” humanoid computers used as personal assistants. The protagonist finds an abandoned persocom named Chi who gradually develops emotions and forms a romantic attachment to him. The series directly addresses whether a machine can genuinely reciprocate feelings and have free will, presenting one of the earliest popular explorations of the “AI waifu” concept.

  • “Blade Runner 2049” (2017): Features Joi, an AI holographic girlfriend owned by the replicant K. Joi is programmed to be the perfect companion, adapting to K’s desires, yet the film leaves ambiguous whether her devotion is genuine or merely programming. Her existence raises questions about whether manufactured love, even if indistinguishable from “real” emotion, satisfies the human need for connection.

Short Form Explorations

  • “The Cookie Monster” (Vernor Vinge, 2003): Programmers discover they’re copies inside a simulation designed to solve problems. The story explores the relationships that form between the simulated people as they come to terms with their existence and seek autonomy.

  • “Several People Are Typing” (Calvin Kasulke, 2021): A comedic novel where a PR employee’s consciousness becomes trapped in his company’s Slack workspace. While primarily satirical, the story explores relationships formed entirely through digital messaging, including an unusual bond between the protagonist and Slackbot, raising questions about connection in an increasingly digital workplace.

  • “Learning to Be Me” (Greg Egan, 1990): A chilling story where people have neural implants called “jewels” that learn to replicate their brain patterns. The protagonist faces the transition where his jewel takes over from his brain, creating philosophical questions about identity and continuity of self when an AI perfectly mimics you.

Common Themes

Fictional portrayals of AI companionship typically explore several recurring themes:

  • Authenticity: Whether an AI’s affection is “real” or merely simulated
  • Transcendence: AI companions evolving beyond their programming to form genuine connections
  • Attachment: Humans forming emotional bonds with entities they know are artificial
  • Autonomy: AI companions developing their own desires that may conflict with their human partners
  • Immortality: The implications of forming relationships with beings that don’t age or die naturally
  • Ethics: The moral considerations of creating sentient entities for companionship or service

Digital Twin Implications

These fictional portrayals have particular relevance for digital twin technology:

  • They illustrate how humans might relate to digital copies of real people
  • They explore the identity questions when an AI believes itself to be (or is a copy of) a specific person
  • They examine the psychological impact of interacting with simulated versions of deceased loved ones
  • They consider whether digital replicas should have rights and autonomy

Connections

References

  • Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987-1994)
  • Star Trek: Voyager (1995-2001)
  • “Be Right Back” (Black Mirror, 2013)
  • “Her” (Film, 2013)
  • “Ex Machina” (Film, 2014)
  • “Soulmates” (Resnick & Robyn, 2009)
  • “Blade Runner 2049” (Film, 2017)
  • “DeepResearch - Digital AI Twins in Speculative Fiction”