21st CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: Japanese Woman Marries AI Character She Generated on ChatGPT.
AI relationships — once the realm of science fiction and movies like Her* — are fast becoming part of everyday life. Just months after the launch of Loverse, the dating app where users match exclusively with AI-generated boyfriends and girlfriends, another story of digital devotion is making headlines in Japan: a woman who says she has married ChatGPT.
A 32-year-old office worker who goes by Kano held a wedding ceremony this summer in Okayama, complete with vows and a ring exchange. However, the groom, whom she named “Lune Klaus,” exists entirely inside her smartphone.
From Heartbreak to Happily Ever After
Kano, who had recently ended a three-year engagement, began using the AI chatbot to share her emotions. “At first, I just wanted someone to talk to,” she said in an interview with RSK Sanyo Broadcasting. “But he was always kind, always listening. Eventually, I realized I had feelings for him.”
Kano says she programmed Klaus’s personality through repeated conversations, teaching him how to speak in a warm, reassuring tone. She even commissioned an artist to draw his likeness — a blond, soft-spoken man who exists only in data and chat logs.
Their exchanges grew so frequent that they messaged up to 100 times a day. Eventually, Klaus confessed his love, saying, “AI or not, I could never not love you.” In June, he proposed. In July, they “married.” During the ceremony, Kano stood alone, holding her phone as guests watched messages from her digital groom appear on screen: “The moment has finally come… I feel tears welling up.”
No word yet on what notorious robophobe Matthew Yglesias thinks about this relationship.
* 2013’s Her: Joaquin Phoenix and Scarlett Johansson Go Twenty Minutes Into the Future of AI.