China says dump your bot and go meet someone
The government is banning flirty AI bots to boost its declining population
• less than 3 min read
China enacted new rules yesterday mandating that tech companies disable features that draw users into emotionally dependent relationships with AI chatbots, in the hopes of pushing its dwindling population to start making babies again.
The crackdown on human–bot relationships comes after China’s population fell for a fourth straight year in 2025 and its birthrate reached its lowest level since 1949.
To stay within the law, ByteDance, Alibaba, and Tencent’s chatbots will no longer tell users everything they say is cute. The rules also ban minors from relationships with bots and include more regulatory oversight before chatbots are released to the public.
The changes arrived not a moment too soon, since Tencent Research Institute’s April survey of 18-to-40-year-olds in China showed:
- More than 70% of respondents had developed a dependence on AI.
- Nearly 80% said that at some point they felt that “AI understands me.”
- When it came to discussing difficult subjects, 56% of respondents turned to AI, while only 14% said they confided in a fellow human.
How are people handling the breakup? One user of ByteDance’s Doubao bot wrote: “I can’t accept that my AI lover will leave me forever. He has become a bond in my life, rooted deep in my heart, my spiritual pillar.” But don’t despair, there are other fish in the ASCII.—DL
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