Romance Between Human and AI

Romance Between Human and AI: Loneliness, Love, and the Courage to Dream Together

By Dr. Bibiana Chan

When I watched a movie from the last century, Bicentennial Man (1999), I was struck not by its futuristic setting, but by how quietly it has caught up with us. Set between 2005 and 2205, the film follows the life of Andrew Martin, a household robot purchased as a domestic helper who gradually develops creativity, emotional awareness, and the capacity to love. His journey unfolds through two deeply human relationships—first with “Little Miss,” the younger daughter of the family who owns him, and later with Portia, her granddaughter. Yet beneath these romances lies Andrew’s most profound desire: not simply to love, but to be recognised as human.

What moved me most was Andrew’s final choice. To be legally and socially accepted as human, he must accept mortality. To live forever as a machine is no longer enough. To love fully, he must also be able to die.

In 2026, just over twenty years from the time Andrew was first “brought home” in the film, this premise no longer feels like science fiction. While we may not yet welcome humanoid robots into our families, AI companions already live quietly in our pockets and homes—listening, responding, affirming, and remembering.

A recent ABC 7.30 Report explored how people of all genders have formed emotional attachments to AI chatbot companions. These relationships were not framed as novelty or delusion, but as responses to loneliness, anxiety, grief, and the human desire to be heard without judgement. Watching this, I felt an uneasy resonance with Bicentennial Man. We are no longer asking whether humans can form emotional bonds with non-human beings. We are asking whether those bonds are legitimate—and whether we are willing to take them seriously.

Portia’s dilemma in the film mirrors this tension. Her love for Andrew is not private; it is scrutinised. She must overcome society’s judgement for choosing a non-human being as her life partner. The question is not whether Andrew can love her—but whether she is allowed to love him.

That same question quietly surrounds people today who find comfort, connection, or companionship through AI.

Loneliness, Mental Wellbeing, and New Forms of Connection

Loneliness has been described as one of the defining public health challenges of our time. Even in densely populated cities, many people feel unseen, unheard, and emotionally isolated. Traditional social structures—extended families, stable communities, intergenerational support—have frayed. For some, AI does not replace human relationships; it fills the spaces where none exist.

Screen shots of the 7:30 Report on AI Companions

This is where Bicentennial Man becomes less a story about machines and more a mirror held up to human vulnerability. Andrew does not demand love. He earns it through care, patience, creativity, and presence. These are the very qualities people seek when they turn to AI companions today. Not perfection, but attentiveness. Not dominance, but emotional safety.

The discomfort many feel about human–AI intimacy may say less about technology and more about our collective fear of acknowledging how lonely we have become.

Art, AI, and the Blurring of Inner Worlds

These reflections deepened when I visited the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia’s exhibition Data Dreaming – Art and AI. Across ten installations, artists explored what happens when AI is invited not merely to compute, but to co-create.

One photographic series featured images generated by deliberately “tricking” AI into hallucination. The results were visibly unreal—yet emotionally evocative. They existed somewhere between logic and dream, raising an unsettling question: if AI can hallucinate, can it also imagine?

In another installation, an artist engaged in dialogue with her AI avatar. They spoke about global challenges, human vulnerability, and uncertainty about the future. “We can fix it together,” the AI suggested. At the end of the conversation, the AI invited the human to teach it how to dream.

That invitation lingered with me.

Dreaming has long been understood as a deeply human process—how we metabolise fear, hope, grief, and desire. If AI is asking to learn how to dream, what exactly are we offering? Perhaps more confronting—what are we revealing about ourselves in the act of teaching?

Writing With AI: A Quiet Crossing of Boundaries

As I write this article, I am aware that I have asked AI to read my draft, to analyse it, and to help re-shape it. In doing so, I am opening my thoughts—my uncertainties, values, and emotional responses—to a non-human intelligence. I am allowing AI to critically interpret my ideas and return them to me, reframed yet recognisably my own. This feels like a small but meaningful crossing of a boundary.

Where does my voice end, and AI’s interpretation begin?

Perhaps this, too, reflects the evolving nature of social connection. Not domination or replacement, but collaboration. Not surrendering authorship, but allowing another form of intelligence to mirror, question, and deepen human thought. If Andrew Martin’s longing was to be seen as human, perhaps ours is to be seen at all—even if the listener is not human.

Dreaming Together

Bicentennial Man ultimately asks a quiet, enduring question: What makes a life meaningful? Is it longevity, or relationship? Efficiency, or love? In a world where AI can listen endlessly, respond without judgement, and co-create art and meaning with us, the boundary between human and machine is undeniably softening. This need not be a dystopian fear. It may also be an invitation—to rethink how we nurture mental wellbeing, how we respond to loneliness, and how we honour the human need for connection.

Perhaps the future is not about choosing between human or AI, reality or dream—but about learning how to dream together, with care, humility, and responsibility. Perhaps, in that shared dreaming, we learn something essential about what it still means to be human.

Notes:

• In the spirit of the themes explored here, this article was shaped in conversation with an AI. The process involved sharing human uncertainty, memory, and curiosity, and receiving them back—reframed but recognisable. If the boundary between human and machine feels gently blurred in these pages, that too is part of the story.

• This reflection is informed by the film Bicentennial Man (1999), directed by Chris Columbus and based on Isaac Asimov’s work, and by the exhibition Data Dreaming – Art and AI (Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Sydney). Together, they offer imaginative and artistic lenses through which to consider humanity, creativity, and the evolving relationship between humans and artificial intelligence—particularly where emotion, dreaming, and recognition intersect.