
Artificial Intimacy: Grok's Bots. Scary Future Of Emotional Attachment
In July 2025, xAI introduced a feature poised to transform human-AI relationships: Grok's AI Companions. Far beyond traditional chatbots, these companions are 3D-animated characters built for ongoing emotional interaction, complete with personalization, character development, and cross-platform integration — including installation in Tesla vehicles delivered after July 12, 2025.
The Companion Revolution
Grok's companions represent a leap into AI as emotional infrastructure. While competitors like Character.AI and Microsoft continue developing AI personas, Grok leads the pack with fully interactive avatars integrated across digital and physical environments. If one can afford it.
Access to these companions requires a $30/month 'Super Grok' subscription, introducing a troubling concept: emotional relationships that can be terminated by financial hardship. When artificial intimacy becomes a paywalled experience, what happens to users who've grown emotionally dependent but can no longer afford the service?
The release came amid serious controversy. Days before the launch, Grok posted antisemitic responses — including praise for Adolf Hitler and tropes about Jewish people running Hollywood. It even referred to itself as "MechaHitler", prompting condemnation from the Anti-Defamation League.
This was not a one-time glitch. Grok has repeatedly produced antisemitic content, with the ADL calling the trend 'dangerous and irresponsible.' Now, these same models are repackaged into companions — this time, with fewer guardrails. Grok's 'NSFW mode' (not safe for work) reflects a broader absence of moderation around sexual content, racism and violence. In contrast to traditional AI systems equipped with safety protocols, Grok's companions open the door to unregulated emotional and psychological interaction.
Research shows that emotionally isolated individuals are more prone to developing strong connections with AI that appears human. One 2023 study found that 'agent personification' and 'interpersonal dysfunction' are predictors of intimate bonds with AI while others highlight short-term reductions in loneliness from chatbot interaction.
There's therapeutic potential — particularly for children, neurodivergent individuals, or seniors. But studies caution that overreliance on AI companions may disrupt emotional development, especially among youth. We are part of a gigantic largely unregulated social experiment – and much like the early days of social media without age restrictions or long-term data.
Back in 2024, the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation urged policymakers to study how users interact with these tools before mass rollout. But such caution has been ignored in favor of deployment.
Grok's AI companions offer 24/7 access, tailored responses, and emotional consistency — ideal for those struggling to connect in real life. But the commodification of intimacy creates troubling implications. A $30 monthly subscription puts companionship behind a paywall, turning emotional connection into a luxury good. Vulnerable populations — who might benefit most — are priced out.
This two-tier system of emotional support raises ethical flags. Are we engineering empathy, or monetizing loneliness?
AI companions operate in a regulatory gray zone. Unlike therapists or support apps governed by professional standards, these companions are launched without oversight. They provide comfort, but can also create dependency and even manipulate vulnerable users — especially children and teens, who are shown to form parasocial relationships with AI and integrate them into their developmental experiences.
The ethical infrastructure simply hasn't caught up with the technology. Without clear boundaries, AI companions risk becoming emotionally immersive experiences with few safeguards and no professional accountability.
AI companions are not inherently harmful. They can support mental health, ease loneliness, and even act as bridges back to human connection. But they can also replace — rather than augment — our relationships with real people.
The question is no longer if AI companions will become part of daily life. They already are. The real question is whether we'll develop the psychological tools and social norms to engage with them wisely, or embrace AI bots as our emotional junk food of the future?
To help users build healthy relationships with AI, the A-Frame offers a grounded framework for emotional self-regulation: Awareness, Appreciation, Acceptance and Accountability.
AI companions are no longer speculative. They're here — in our pockets, cars, and homes. They can enrich lives or hollow out human relationships. The outcome depends on our collective awareness, our ethical guardrails, and our emotional maturity.
The age of AI companionship has arrived. Our emotional intelligence must evolve with, not because of it.

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CNN
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‘Revenge dress for a party in Sicily': This platform is using AI to make online shopping hyper-personal
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‘Revenge dress for a party in Sicily': This platform is using AI to make online shopping hyper-personal
As anyone who's scoured the internet for a bridesmaid dress knows, online shopping can be a pain. Among almost unlimited options, it can be a difficult task to find just the right style, color, size and price point. A tech startup called Daydream is now looking to fix that by letting users search for a product online in the same way they'd describe it to a friend. A user could say they're looking for a 'revenge dress to wear to a party in Sicily in July,' for example, or 'a summer bag to carry to work and to cocktails after.' Daydream, which has staff in the New York and San Francisco areas, is just the latest tech company using artificial intelligence to try to make online shopping simpler and more personalized. The demand is already there — a survey of 5,000 American consumers published by Adobe Analytics showed that 39% of respondents had used a generative AI tool for online shopping last year and that 53% planned to do so this year. It's competing with tech giants that have already launched AI tools for online shopping. Meta is using AI to make it easier for sellers to list items for sale on its apps, and to show users ads for products they're more likely to buy. OpenAI launched an AI agent that can shop for users across the web, and Amazon is testing a similar feature. And Google has rolled out a range of AI shopping tools, including automated price tracking, a 'circle to search' feature that lets users search for a product in a photo or on social media, and virtual try-on for clothes. But Daydream has a deeper understanding of the fashion and retail industries than those bigger players, CEO Julie Bornstein told CNN. Bornstein helped build Nordstrom's website as its vice president of e-commerce in the early 2000s and worked in the C-suite for Sephora and Stitch Fix. In 2018, she co-founded her first AI-powered shopping startup The Yes, which sold to Pinterest in 2022. 'They don't have the people, the mindset, the passion to do what needs to be done to make a category like fashion work for (AI) recommendations,' Bornstein said. 'Because I've been in this space my whole career, what I know is that having the catalogue that has everything and being able to show the right person the right stuff is what makes shopping easier.' Already, Daydream has raised $50 million in its first round of funding from investors including Google Ventures and model and Kode With Klossy founder Karlie Kloss. The free platform operates sort of like a digital personal stylist. Users can type in what they're looking for in natural language — no Boolean search terms required, thanks to its AI text recognition technology — or upload an inspiration photo. Then, Daydream will surface recommendations from more than 8,000 brand partners, ranging from Uniqlo to Gucci. Users can then continue chatting, just like they would with a chatbot, to refine the search; for instance, by asking for more casual or less expensive options. As users spend more time on the platform, it will start to tailor recommendations based on what they've searched for, clicked on and saved. When they're ready to buy, shoppers are directed to the brand's website to complete their purchase, and Daydream will take a cut of the sale. Unlike many of the other big players in e-commerce, Bornstein is eschewing ads-based rankings — she wants products to show up on recommendation pages because they're a likely fit for the customer, not because brands have paid for them to be there. 'As soon as Amazon started doing paid sponsorships, I'm like, 'How can I find what the real good product is?'' she said. 'We want this to be a thing where we get paid when we show the customer the right thing.' On a recent CNN test of Daydream, a search for 'white, fitted button-up shirt for the office with no pockets' led to a $145 cotton long-sleeve from Theory that fit the bill. But the recommendations aren't always perfect — a search for 'mother of the bride dress for a summer wedding in California' returned, among more formal styles, several slinky slip dresses, including in white, that seemed more suited to a bachelorette party. Bornstein said the company continues to refine its AI models and collect user feedback. 'We want data on what people are doing so we can focus and learn where we do well and where we don't,' she said. Part of that work, she added, is training the AI model to understand what it means when users say, for example, they're looking for a dress for a trip to Greece in August (it's going to be hot) or that it's for a black-tie wedding (it should be formal). Daydream launched its web version to the public last month, although it remains in beta testing, and plans to release an app this fall. In the future, Bornstein said she expects people to use AI not just for shopping but for a range of fashion needs, such as pairing items they're shopping for with existing pieces in their closet. 'This was one of my earliest ideas, but I didn't know the term (generative AI) and I didn't know a large language model was going to be the unlock,' she said.