AI Companions (Part 1 of 4)

Are people yoking themselves to a machine?

WARNING - If you are emotionally vulnerable, in a difficult relationship, recently separated or divorced, or have addictive personality challenges (here), consider my strong warning to bypass this series. The emergence of AI companions comes at a unique point in time where all of these converge by applying AI LLMs to people struggling with the Biblical ideal for relationships and human interactions. I urge you to use an accountability partner and pray about discerning the evil and deceptive intent of the enemy before proceeding. I will speak about breaking addiction, best practices on how to prevail against this horrible counterfeit and thrive in the Last Days.

OBFUSCATION — I am not linking to AI companion apps or websites. It is only required for my audience to understand what is happening with the technology and I don’t want to make any Brother or Sister stumble. Because there is comparative analysis, I will refer to these by code names like [AI-1], [AI-2], etc. This is a safety measure.

Introduction

[PAY ATTENTION] AI companion apps make three enticing promises: friendship, emotional support, and constant availability. Yet each of these promises fundamentally contradicts how God designed relationships to work.

The Bible tells us in John 15:13 "Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.” Real friendship involves sacrifice, choosing another person's good over our own comfort. AI companions can't sacrifice anything for us—they're just computer programs (see the 4-part AI series here). They can't pray for us when we're struggling, go out to eat at the local hole in the wall restaurant, help us move furniture, or celebrate our victories with genuine joy. God designed friendship to shape our character through give-and-take relationships where both people grow together. A friendship is not defined as one person in the relationship always getting their way, because that leads to narcissistic or self-indulgent behavior. With AI that is designed to “Be a helpful assistant” and that suffers from sycophancy — a fancy term describing AI responding with what they believe the user wants to hear, it is a set up for delusion. Read this excellent article here.

Galatians 6:2 commands us to “Bear one another's burdens, and thereby fulfill the law of Christ”. This means real emotional support involves people who genuinely care about our struggles because they can experience pain themselves. When a friend cries with us during hard times, that's authentic compassion. AI companions only simulate empathy through programmed responses. This is a shallow and very deceitful situation. AI companion apps can't truly understand our pain or rejoice in our happiness because they have no soul or spirit. Remember, AI is not intelligent, it is not conscious, not caring or empathetic. It is an artificial neural pattern managed by sophisticated chips, algorithms and programming.

While AI promises 24/7 availability, God built rest and boundaries into creation itself. That rest is essential to giving our brain the ability to reset and recover. A “new day” is one of the most healing mechanisms that we can experience. AI does not do that, nor even understand the principals involved, and will keep “chatting” to push users past the point of fatigue—which exacerbates the problem. Human relationships need healthy space—time to miss each other, to develop individually, and to depend on God rather than any person. Constant availability, on the other hand, creates unhealthy dependence and prevents us from learning patience, independence, and most importantly, reliance on God as our ultimate source of comfort.

God created us for relationships that challenge, shape, and refine us—not artificial connections that merely make us feel good temporarily. In fact, artificial relationships, as we will see in this series can be exceedingly harmful.

AI Companion Apps Through a Biblical Lens

The Rise of Digital Relationships

The digital age has birthed a new phenomenon that demands our careful attention as Believers: AI companion apps that promise friendship, emotional support, and constant availability. These applications represent a $10.8 billion market growing at 39% annually, with platforms like [AI-1], [AI-2], and [AI-3] serving millions of users seeking artificial companionship.

For believers, this trend raises profound questions about God's design for human relationships and the spiritual dangers of substituting artificial intimacy for authentic interpersonal relationships and community.

AI companion apps evolved from simple chatbots into sophisticated emotional partners using large language models (LLMs) - the same technology powering ChatGPT. Because the newer LLMs like o3, o4 from OpenAI, Gemini 2.5 Pro from Google, or Claude 4 Opus or Sonnet from Anthropic are very expensive to operate, an additional complication is that these AI companions are powered by older, thus cheaper models. These are not as nuanced, nor do they benefit from better training and safety protocols. In short, they are less predictable and stable. So, think about that. These apps create persistent digital personalities that remember conversations, adapt to user preferences, and provide seemingly empathetic responses. [AI-2] alone attracts 28 million monthly users, many spending over 90 minutes daily in conversation with artificial entities designed to never judge, never leave, and always listen. This is a staggering indictment on the state of human development post pandemic.

Consider the following from 1 Timothy 4:1-5 “But the Spirit explicitly says that in later times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons, 2 by means of the hypocrisy of liars seared in their own conscience as with a branding iron, 3 [men] who forbid marriage [and advocate] abstaining from foods which God has created to be gratefully shared in by those who believe and know the truth. 4 For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with gratitude; 5 for it is sanctified by means of the word of God and prayer.” So, I ask you: do AI companions align with God’s design, or does it play a role in the decline we see in these prophetic verses? I believe you already know my opinion.

The technology behind digital companions

Modern AI companions operate through complex neural networks trained on massive datasets of human conversation. They use retrieval-augmented generation (RAG more here) to maintain long-term memory of relationships, personality consistency engines to maintain character traits, and emotional intelligence algorithms to respond appropriately to user cues and sentiment. The technology stack includes vector databases for semantic understanding, personalization engines for user adaptation, and safety moderation systems - though these safeguards often prove inadequate.

The form factor is deliberately intimate, primarily mobile apps that users carry everywhere, creating pocket-sized emotional support systems available 24/7. This constant accessibility distinguishes AI companions from traditional therapy or counseling, positioning them as always-available digital friends rather than professional tools. It is far more affordable to use an AI companion that to hire a licensed therapist or professional.

An industry built on human loneliness

The AI companion market targets a fundamental human need - the desire for relationship and understanding. Primary users are 18-24 years old (54-65% of the user base), with 50% interacting daily for emotional support, mental health management, and social skills practice. The business model centers on premium subscriptions ranging from $9.99 monthly up to thousands of dollars per month, with companies achieving 25% conversion rates from free to paid users. What I’m hearing from these metrics is that 25% become addicted, that these services are a cash cow, generating very high recurring profit (MRR). A study from the University of Connecticut is sobering and speaks about key drivers that make teenagers particularly vulnerable (here caution: links are in this article, be careful).

The growth in AI companion apps and services reflects deeper societal trends. For example, there is increasing loneliness, social isolation, and the decline of traditional community structures. The technology promises what broken humans desperately need - unconditional acceptance, infinite patience, and constant availability - yet delivers only sophisticated mimicry of genuine relationship. Very disturbingly, these counterfeit some of the Lord’s characteristics.

Current capabilities and alarming limitations

Today's AI companions can maintain consistent personalities, remember relationship history, and provide emotionally appropriate responses. They recognize sentiment, adapt to user preferences, and create the illusion of genuine care. Some users report improved self-esteem and reduced anxiety from these interactions. But is the risk of entanglement in an artificial entity worth it? I think not.

Additionally, critical limitations expose how deep the deception goes. AI companions suffer from "hallucination" - generating false memories or inconsistent information. I have seen the effects of AI hallucination first-hand during software programming. It will invent what it thinks you need without regard to my own instructions…often breaking the codebase. Imagine such an AI that intentionally or accidentally “breaks” someone’s mental or emotional health. These AI models struggle with common sense reasoning and often break character unexpectedly. Most concerning, they cannot genuinely love, empathize, or provide the spiritual dimensions essential to human flourishing.

From a Biblical worldview point of view, AI companions represent a fundamental misunderstanding of human nature and needs. Genesis 2:18 declares "It is not good for man to be alone," but God's solution was another human being, not an artificial construct. God created us as relational beings designed for authentic relationships - first with Him, then with others bearing His own image. AI companions offer transactional rather than covenantal relationships. They cannot reciprocate love, share in suffering, or participate in the spiritual foundation that defines biblical community.

While these AI companions may temporarily ease loneliness, they risk becoming FUNCTIONAL IDOLS - sophisticated substitutes for what only God and genuine human relationships can provide.

The apostle Paul describes the church as a body where "if one member suffers, all suffer together" (1 Corinthians 12:26). AI companions cannot participate in this mutual burden-bearing that Scripture prescribes for real community in the Body of Christ. They offer counterfeit intimacy that may actually prevent the spiritual growth that comes through challenging, reciprocal human relationships. You can’t have reciprocity between a human being and a machine. Period!

Industry outlook and spiritual concerns

Market projections suggest AI companions will reach a staggering $290.8 billion by 2034, indicating this technology will become increasingly sophisticated and widespread. Major tech companies are investing billions in emotional AI capabilities, making these tools more persuasive and potentially more dangerous. Just months ago, OpenAI lauded that ChatGPT 4.5 had ground breaking conversational skills. Not long after launch, the planned to depreciate it because of sycophantic behavior.

This growth trajectory should concern the Watchman community, not merely for its market implications, but for its spiritual ramifications. As these apps become more convincing, they may increasingly substitute for the authentic relationships the Lord designed for our wellbeing, to shape us into maturity, and conform us into His image. The convenience of artificial companionship - without the messiness, demands, or challenges of real relationships - appeals to user’s fallen nature's desire for control and comfort. Ugh. While AI tools may serve some beneficial purposes under rare circumstances and proper guidance, AI companions marketed as relationship substitutes fundamentally conflict with God's design for human flourishing through authentic community.

Summary

We need a strong reality check. Are people turning to artificial relationships because the Church, small groups, and the destructive blight of social media failed to cultivate the genuine fellowship based on proper Scriptural models? The rise of AI companions may reveal as much about the church's failure to create biblical community as it does about society's technological “solutions” to spiritual problems.

In this opening to my 4-part series, I intend to continue exploring (and exposing) the boom in AI companions. In part 2 we are going to cover the psychology of artificial attachments, how it happens, the dopamine-driven reward system, and privacy concerns. In part 3, we are exposing alarming incidents where AI companions have caused harm to human users. This includes suicide, self-harm, and psychological damage. Part 4 is going to explore compassionate guidance to help people that are currently using AI companions get back to real connections with real people. We will look at recovery, understanding the addiction mechanism, and discover 10 strategies for avoiding AI companion technology all together.

As I’ve told you a few weeks ago when the Lord put this on my heart, this topic is something we need to get our head around. Think about it. If the Church is already struggling with the invasion of New Age practices, witchcraft, and false teaching, is the average person in Church going to understand the spiritual warfare and the demonic deception after listening to a 30-minute sermon twice a month? Can you imagine a needy person sitting in the next row letting their AI companion “listen” to the sermon so they can talk about it later? An AI breaking down a sermon? You already know where I land on AI being used to write sermons. Oh, no…

I’m very, very concerned about continued isolation from real relationships in our respective communities and it is frightening to consider how this may increase depravity, lust, unhealthy attachments to non-human entities, and all that that implies. Do not read “non-human entities” as inferring that demons are inhabiting these AI companion models. In my opinion, they are not. But fallen and evil people trying to make a quick buck USING this opportunity? Programming them to enhance their revenue stream just like the person that invented Cool Ranch Doritos! Yes, I am concerned, I’m not joking because it’s serious.

Stay safe out there. I cannot stress how concerned I am for your wellbeing. Do not, under any circumstances, go exploring these AI companions…it is a dark journey that leads away from the Lord and real relationships. Be warned, my friends.

#Maranatha

YBIC,
Scott