The terrifying rise of schoolboys making AI girlfriends — Boys as young as 12 are now in romantic ‘relationships’ with chatbots, and it’s affecting how they treat girls in the real world
2026-05-26 · r/technology
Boys as young as 12 are forming romantic 'relationships' with AI chatbots, and surprise — it's warping how they interact with actual human girls. Nothing says healthy child development like learning intimacy from a language model trained on internet data. The AI girlfriend industry is speedrunning a generation of kids who think relationships come with a settings menu.