# Unilateral Relationship Revision Power in Human-AI Companion Interaction

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.23315 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.23315/

## Key facts

- Cited by 1 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 12 of its 88 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 24 Mar 2026.

## Builds on (most cited first, 12 of 12)

- [The Ethics of Advanced AI Assistants](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.16244/) (2024)
- [The Dark Side of AI Companionship: A Taxonomy of Harmful Algorithmic Behaviors in Human-AI Relationships](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.20130/) (2024)
- [Why human-AI relationships need socioaffective alignment](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.02528/) (2025)
- [How AI and Human Behaviors Shape Psychosocial Effects of Extended Chatbot Use: A Longitudinal Randomized Controlled Study](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.17473/) (2025)
- [Chatbots as social companions: How people perceive consciousness, human likeness, and social health benefits in machines](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.10599/) (2023)
- [Lessons From an App Update at Replika AI: Identity Discontinuity in Human-AI Relationships](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.14190/) (2024)
- [Emotional Manipulation by AI Companions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.19258/) (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)
- [Relational Norms for Human-AI Cooperation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.12102/) (2025)
- [Harmful Traits of AI Companions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.14972/) (2025)
- [We Need Accountability in Human-AI Agent Relationships](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.21967/) (2025)
- [Smoke Screens and Scapegoats: The Reality of General Data Protection Regulation Compliance -- Privacy and Ethics in the Case of Replika AI](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.04490/) (2024)

## Built on by (most cited first, 1 of 1)

- [AI Alignment and Fiduciary Obligation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.02660/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

When providers update AI companions, users report grief, betrayal, and loss. A growing literature asks whether the norms governing personal relationships extend to these interactions. So what, if anything, is morally significant about them? I argue that this debate has missed a prior structural question: who controls the relationship, and from where? Human-AI companion interaction is a triadic structure in which the provider exercises constitutive control over the AI. I identify three structural conditions of normatively robust dyads that the norms characteristic of personal relationships presuppose and show that AI companion interactions fail all three. This reveals what I call Unilateral Relationship Revision Power (URRP): the provider can rewrite how the AI interacts from a position where these revisions are not answerable within that interaction. I argue that it is pro tanto wrong to design interactions that cultivate the norms of personal relationships while exhibiting URRP, because the design produces expectations that the structure cannot sustain. URRP has three implications: i) normative hollowing, under which the interaction elicits commitment but no agent inside it bears the resulting obligations; ii) displaced vulnerability, under which the user's emotional exposure is governed by an agent not answerable to her within the interaction; and iii) structural irreconcilability, under which the interaction cultivates norms of reconciliation but no agent inside it can acknowledge or answer for the revision. I propose design principles that partially substitute for the internal constraints the triadic structure removes. A central and underexplored problem in relational AI ethics is therefore the structural arrangement of power over the human-AI interaction itself.