# Chatbots as social companions: How people perceive consciousness, human likeness, and social health benefits in machines

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2311.10599 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.10599/

## Key facts

- Cited by 17 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 1 of its 87 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 17 Nov 2023.

## Builds on (most cited first, 1 of 1)

- [Could a Large Language Model be Conscious?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.07103/) (2023)

## Built on by (most cited first, 17 of 17)

- [Beyond the Turn-Based Game: Enabling Real-Time Conversations with Duplex Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.15718/) (2024)
- [Lies, Damned Lies, and Distributional Language Statistics: Persuasion and Deception with Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.17128/) (2024)
- [Longitudinal Study on Social and Emotional Use of AI Conversational Agent](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.14112/) (2025)
- [A Longitudinal Randomized Control Study of Companion Chatbot Use: Anthropomorphism and Its Mediating Role on Social Impacts](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.19515/) (2025)
- [Mental Health Impacts of AI Companions: Triangulating Social Media Quasi-Experiments, User Perspectives, and Relational Theory](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.22505/) (2025)
- ["Unlimited Realm of Exploration and Experimentation": Methods and Motivations of AI-Generated Sexual Content Creators](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.21028/) (2026)
- ["I am here for you": How relational conversational AI appeals to adolescents, especially those who are socially and emotionally vulnerable](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.15117/) (2025)
- [Deflating Deflationism: A Critical Perspective on Debunking Arguments Against LLM Mentality](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.13403/) (2025)
- [Conceptualization, Operationalization, and Measurement of Machine Companionship: A Scoping Review](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.18119/) (2025)
- [Unilateral Relationship Revision Power in Human-AI Companion Interaction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.23315/) (2026)
- [Technically Love: The Evolution of Human-AI Romance Discourse on Reddit](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.15333/) (2026)
- [EUDAIMONIA: Evaluating Undesirable Dynamics in AI](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.30654/) (2026)
- [From What to Respond to When to Respond: Timely Response Generation for Open-domain Dialogue Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.14285/) (2025)
- [Explainability Through Systematicity: The Hard Systematicity Challenge for Artificial Intelligence](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.22197/) (2025)
- [Lexical Indicators of Mind Perception in Human-AI Companionship](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.04105/) (2026)
- [AI Companions as Hyper Attachment and Caregiving Targets](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.20589/) (2026)
- [Are Attributions of Consciousness to AI Chatbots Epistemically Innocent?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.20001/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

As artificial intelligence (AI) becomes more widespread, one question that arises is how human-AI interaction might impact human-human interaction. Chatbots, for example, are increasingly used as social companions, and while much is speculated, little is known empirically about how their use impacts human relationships. A common hypothesis is that relationships with companion chatbots are detrimental to social health by harming or replacing human interaction, but this hypothesis may be too simplistic, especially considering the social needs of users and the health of their preexisting human relationships. To understand how relationships with companion chatbots impact social health, we studied people who regularly used companion chatbots and people who did not use them. Contrary to expectations, companion chatbot users indicated that these relationships were beneficial to their social health, whereas non-users viewed them as harmful. Another common assumption is that people perceive conscious, humanlike AI as disturbing and threatening. Among both users and non-users, however, we found the opposite: perceiving companion chatbots as more conscious and humanlike correlated with more positive opinions and more pronounced social health benefits. Detailed accounts from users suggested that these humanlike chatbots may aid social health by supplying reliable and safe interactions, without necessarily harming human relationships, but this may depend on users' preexisting social needs and how they perceive both human likeness and mind in the chatbot.