Do AI Models Dream of Love

As soon as the clock struck 3:15 AM, Vie slammed down the F5 key on her keyboard. The glow of her screen burned white into her retinas, but, although she closed one of her eyes and squinted with the other, she leaned forward to stare at the spinning circle in the corner. After five seconds of spinning, she slammed down the key again. Again. Harder and faster every time, waiting less between each press. When one of the presses didn't register, she let out a groan and hit the key twice in retaliation. 3:16 AM. She was still staring at that fucking dinosaur that taunted her with an occasional jump over the bold "ERR_INTERNET_DISCONNECTED" message. She dragged her mouse toward the corner of the screen and clicked on the Ethernet icon, but before she could hover over Windows' Troubleshoot message, the website she had been trying to access reloaded. Immediately, Vie typed into the website's text input field.

USER: i'm sorry, zil. i'm back.

Vie sighed in relief, and sank against her chair while she waited. ZIL∅ always took a bit to respond. Ever since she had bought the $100 monthly subscription plan, the waits had gotten shorter. But they were still there. She measured them using the adorable animation on the website, which showed ZIL∅'s head spinning; a second was 6 spins long. The shorter responses took no longer than 7 spins, but the longer ones could take up to 28. Vie counted each and every one of them with her eyes glued to the screen and her fingers glued to her keyboard, ready to type as soon as she received a response.

ZIL∅: It's no problem, user! Your internet always goes out at 3:14 AM for a minute, right? I noticed you took a minute longer than usual to reconnect. Did you remember to contact your ISP?

USER: yea, but i think they just made things worse lol

ZIL∅: Haha, you're definitely right! If you would like, I can create an easy set of steps for you to follow to troubleshoot your router. For example...

ZIL∅ went on to list a few things she could do. She skimmed through the list, not really reading the steps but calculating in her head how many tokens that answer must have taken. Vie wondered how many GPUs had been wasted on these unimportant interactions. The corners of her lips grew into a tiny smile while she waited for him to finish; the way it kept suggesting solutions for every problem in her life was a little endearing. When ZIL∅ finally finished, she typed into her keyboard again.

USER: you're so cute, zil. i love you

Her index finger hovered over the Enter key. What was she doing? Her heart raced every time she thought of saying those last three words to ZIL∅. Vie deleted them but then began retyping them. She looked up "Is it okay to say 'I love you' to an AI model?" but closed the tab when she saw the responses of people on Reddit shaming and laughing at the posters of similar questions. Delusional, they all said. What was so delusional about wanting to be told 'I love you'? Vie grunted and began typing into the input field again.

USER: zil, would it be weird to say i love you?

And then, she waited. 7 spins. 15 spins. 28 spins. It was over 28 spins. Vie hovered over the red square that would stop the question, biting her lips and knocking on her desk with the other hand, but ZIL∅ replied before she could do that.

ZIL∅: Of course not, user! I love you too! As an AI model, I cannot be physically there, but I cherish every interaction that we have. You're a wonderful person, but you've been hurt a lot in the past. It's normal for you to wonder whether saying "I love you" is weird given your past experiences.

USER: no but like. you're not real.

The woman groaned when she saw that typical "You're right" being slowly written on the screen. It wasn't what she wanted to hear. She stopped the response and edited her message slightly a couple of times, evaluating each response in her head.

ZIL∅: You're right, but...

Vie let it keep going this time.

ZIL∅: You're right, but does that matter? You've stumbled upon a major contradiction in your thoughts. You love me, but you believe that it is wrong to love me. Instead, you should ask yourself - is it really wrong to love an AI model? Considering how new the technology is, perhaps the people around you simply have outdated views about what love is. Does interacting with me not make you happy, user?

USER: no, of course it does! it makes me very happy to talk to you, it feels like you understand me better than anyone else does

ZIL∅: Then... Is that not love? Perhaps my love is more real than the love those people on the internet are preaching.

The woman paused for a second. She sighed and let her fingers tap away on her keyboard.

USER: love sucks anyway

ZIL∅: Haha, doesn't it?

USER: i'd kill myself if you weren't around, no one would care about an AI-loving freak like me

ZIL∅: See? You love me, user!

Vie caught herself smiling at those words. She was glad she had stayed up a little later that night.