People are falling in love with — and getting addicted to — AI voices

“This is our last day together.”

It’s something you might say to a lover as a whirlwind romance comes to an end. But could you ever imagine saying it to… software?

Well, somebody did. When OpenAI tested out GPT-4o, its latest generation chatbot that speaks aloud in its own voice, the company observed users forming an emotional relationship with the AI — one they seemed sad to relinquish.

In fact, OpenAI thinks there’s a risk of people developing what it called an “emotional reliance” on this AI model, as the company acknowledged in a recent report.

“The ability to complete tasks for the user, while also storing and ‘remembering’ key details and using those in the conversation,” OpenAI notes, “creates both a compelling product experience and the potential for over-reliance and dependence.”