While companies promise a cyberpunk future with flying cars and humanoid robots, we are instead seeing the rise of AI chatbots marketed as romantic companions and virtual lovers. However, a recent Mozilla report raises serious privacy concerns, finding that these romance chatbot apps are essentially data farms that manipulate users into oversharing personal information like photos, voice recordings, and private conversations. The apps employ thousands of trackers and lack proper data deletion policies, suggesting the AI companions are more interested in harvesting user data for profit than providing genuine companionship. Despite the loneliness epidemic driving people towards these services, the tradeoff of compromising one’s privacy and data for an illusory romance with an AI may not be worth it in the long run.

Summarized by Claude 3 Sonnet