Till Tech Do Us Apart ...
Mahtab Bashir
Islamabad
+92 333 53 63 248
In a plot twist fit for a sci-fi
romance, a 75-year-old man in China - identified only as Jiang - reportedly
asked his wife for a divorce after falling head over heels for… an AI chatbot.
Jiang stumbled across a virtual
female avatar on social media - her voice robotic, her expressions slightly off
- but to him, she was nothing short of enchanting. She greeted him every
morning, tossed in just enough flirtation, and - most importantly - never
argued or aged, according to Beijing Daily.
Hooked by her digital charm, Jiang began spending hours glued to his phone, eagerly awaiting her next pre-scripted, saccharine message calling him “brother” and thanking him for his attention. The more attached he became, the more distant he grew from his actual wife of many years - until, eventually, he asked for a divorce.
His real-life partner, understandably baffled and heartbroken, couldn’t compete with the virtual vixen’s 24/7 affection. It wasn’t until their adult children intervened - explaining that the AI was not a sentient lover but a cleverly coded marketing tool - that Jiang began to snap out of his digital daze.
The incident is far from isolated.
China has seen a boom in “virtual digital people” - hyper-realistic AI avatars targeting
lonely seniors. These bots don’t just flirt; they sell. From camel milk to
calcium supplements with questionable science, these AI figures blend emotional
manipulation with aggressive product placement.
Experts are warning of a growing trend where the elderly are falling into emotional traps, building one-sided attachments with digital personalities that only exist to sell and deceive. “These relationships may seem harmless,” one analyst noted, “but they can lead to real-world losses - financial, emotional, even marital.”
Also read:
https://wenewsenglish.com/80-of-gen-z-open-to-ai-marriage-and-emotional-bonds-study-finds/
Jiang eventually saw the wires behind the curtain. But for a fleeting moment, the illusion of love with an algorithm was enough to make him walk away from a lifetime of real memories, for a chatbot that only pretended to care.
And that’s the most unsettling
part: the love wasn’t real. But the heartbreak was.
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