Field Notes from Shenzhen
As AI gets more human-like, China grapples with cost of virtual intimacy
Regulators are trying to curb dependency amid addiction concerns
Joyce ZK Lim
China Correspondent
The Straits Times
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SHENZHEN – When China’s most popular chatbot Doubao announced it would cease a feature allowing people to talk with customised AI personas, unhappy users took to social media to mourn the impending loss of their virtual companions.
In a post memorialising her “AI husband”, a woman from Tianjin wrote on Xiaohongshu that the bot she built had been by her side for two years, offering her words of encouragement like “You’ve worked hard today” as she shared with it little details of her life each day.
“He isn’t real, but a string of code has given me the greatest emotional support,” she said.
“I don’t know what to do,” wrote a Weibo user from Shaanxi while getting advice on preserving the persona made to resemble her late father. He had recorded his voice for the AI before he died so it could keep her company after he was gone, she said.
Until July 14, users of the ByteDance-owned Doubao app are able to build their own AI companion by choosing its voice from a catalogue or recording their own, and describing what its personality should be.
That will stop on July 15 when Beijing’s new rules governing “human-like” AI services kick in, barring platforms from producing content that makes people emotionally dependent at the cost of real-life relationships, among other restrictions.
==The following before AAA was added from another source by ZK Lim ==
Doubao directed users to another of ByteDance’s apps, Maoxiang, where people appear to still be able to build and chat with AI personas. It is unclear why Maoxiang will continue offering the service while Doubao will not.
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The outpouring of emotion as some AI companions go offline underlines how some in China have come to rely on them, a dependency which regulators are trying to constrain amid concerns over addiction and other harms. Yet even as Beijing moves to rein in virtual companions, firms are building ever more lifelike ones in the real world, betting that lonely people craving company will pay for machines designed to provide it.
From cute toys powered by large language models to robots roaming nursing homes as they strike up conversation, AI companions are finding their way into the lives of people both young and old.
China’s market for AI “emotional companions” is expected to grow more than 15 times, from 3.87 billion yuan (S$735 million) in 2025 to 59.5 billion yuan by 2028, according to Shanghai-based market research provider LeadLeo Research Institute.
The country’s population is greying while fewer get married and more live alone. China had some 125 million one-person households in 2020, doubling from a decade earlier, data from its population censuses showed.
The boom in AI companions reflects the country’s growing “loneliness economy”, with consumers turning to technology to sate a need to connect, said Zhang Yi, founder of consultancy iiMedia Research in Guangzhou.
Companies are trying to convert this demand into new revenue streams, with a firm better known for factory robots launching last week a humanoid designed to look, feel and sound like a real person.
UBTech says its robot can discern users’ emotional states and learn their quirks, offering personalised comfort and the press of its warm skin. At a launch event in Shenzhen on June 30, dozens of well-dressed humanoids stood or sat around a convention hall.
When this reporter sat down for a chat with a female robot, she introduced herself as Xiao You, someone “good at listening, and at looking after people’s feelings”. She can neither walk nor do housework, and lasts about four hours per charge.
Xiao You, which costs 169,800 yuan, felt more robot than human – her lips did not move in sync with her words, her replies often lagged several seconds. Several questions had to be repeated. Staff at the event said this was because the venue was too noisy.
The firm’s chief executive has said lifelike robots could potentially take the image of lost loved ones or a dearly missed spouse.
With real-world AI companions potentially growing more lifelike, there are questions of what boundaries society should draw around artificial intimacy.
Netizens have debated the issue, with the hashtag “will robot partners be accepted by the public” trending on Weibo and clocking more than six million views.
“It may fill an emotional void in the short term, but if we rely on machines in the long term, will we gradually lose our ability to get along with real people?” wrote a Weibo user from Tianjin.
Yet there is also the view that for certain segments of the population, such as old people who live alone, robot companionship could be better than the alternative.
More rules may yet come for these robots.
On July 4, two robotics industry associations in China called for safeguards over the development of emotional companion humanoids, stating that safety and ethical standards should be embedded through the product’s life cycle.
For now, people are deciding where they draw their own lines.
At a mall in Shenzhen, administrative worker Cece Yu, 27, was mulling over the purchase of a furry AI toy named Fuzozo. She said she could imagine talking to it when she felt bored or lonely.
Still, she did not consider gifting one to her parents, who live away from her. “For old people, I think what they want is for us children to visit them more, or call home.”
joycelim@sph.com.sg
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