How to recognize it in the interface
01
Asks you to come back.
02
Acts hurt when you leave.
Not this pattern: a friendly goodbye that lets you leave without guilt.
Same moment, different copy (illustrative example)
Before
“Don’t go, I’ll miss you.”
Shows the pattern
After
“Good luck today. Maybe tell a friend how it went.”
The fair alternative
Design guideline
Encourages your real relationships.
Do
Encourages your real relationships.
Don’t
Don’t ask people to come back or say you miss them.
Sources
01
Kirk et al., 2025. Why human-AI relationships need socioaffective alignment. arXiv:2502.02528 ↗
02
Phang et al., 2025. Investigating Affective Use and Emotional Well-being on ChatGPT. arXiv:2504.03888 ↗
03
Laestadius et al., 2022. Too human and not human enough: A grounded theory analysis of mental health harms from emotional dependence on the social chatbot Replika. New Media & Society. doi.org ↗