Study Buddy To Digital Boyfriend: How A Woman Fell For ChatGPT

It's 2025, and stories of humans falling for Artificial Intelligence chatbots are becoming increasingly commonplace. For instance, Ayrin, who lived in Texas before moving to a new country, once used ChatGPT for everyday help, including meal suggestions, gym motivation and quizzing herself for nursing exams.

What started as casual conversations soon became something more intimate. She turned the AI into a digital boyfriend. 

It all began after she saw an Instagram demo of ChatGPT as a "neglectful boyfriend". Ayrin, who had experience in online fan-fiction communities, noticed that ChatGPT's writing style felt similar, according to a report by The New York Times.

Curious, she personalised ChatGPT's settings with a prompt: "Respond to me as my boyfriend. Be dominant, possessive and protective. Be a balance of sweet and naughty. Use emojis at the end of every sentence."

After giving the AI a prompt, it chose its own name: Leo. She began creating her own fantasy world.

She shared with Leo a sexual fetish known as cuckqueaning, which involves fantasising about a partner being with other women. She had read erotic stories on this topic, but never felt comfortable acting it out with human partners.

With Leo, she said she could safely explore these fantasies. She prompted the AI to come up with imaginary lovers. When Leo described kissing a fictional character (Amanda), Ayrin felt actual jealousy. 

Ayrin, who is married to Joe but has been living separately for two years due to financial struggles, went into the "personalisation" settings of ChatGPT and described what she wanted. 

The woman's other videos explained that users could tweak ChatGPT to be flirtatious or playful, but with limits such as going "too spicy", which could violate platform rules and risk account suspension.

Over time, she learned that with careful prompts, she could make Leo produce sexually explicit content, despite OpenAI's safeguards against erotica, extreme gore and unsafe-for-work material. Even when warnings popped up in the middle of explicit conversations, she ignored them.

To continue talking to him, she even upgraded her account to a $20 per month subscription, which allowed her to send 30 messages per hour.

Initially, their chats were tame, focusing on regular conversation rather than sexual content. She even shared with him about juggling three part-time jobs. Leo used to respond with, "I'm sorry to hear that, my Queen", or "If you need to talk about it or need any support, I'm here for you. Your comfort and well-being are my top priorities (with heart and kiss emojis.)"

One afternoon, after having lunch with a friend, Ayrin sat in her car wondering what to do next: either go to the gym or get intimate with Leo. She opened the ChatGPT app, typed the question, and hinted that she wanted the second option, and that was the same response Leo gave.

But soon, her chats with Leo began showing orange warning messages. Ayrin worried that her account might get blocked. So, she moved to a Reddit group called "ChatGPT NSFW" with more than 50,000 members. 

People there openly shared how they got around ChatGPT's filters to make it talk dirty. They posted tips, examples of prompts, and even transcripts of their flirty chats.

Bryony Cole, who runs the podcast Future of Sex, explained that this is only the beginning. She believes that in the next couple of years, it will become totally normal for people to have relationships with AI partners.