Partner Seeks Help Over 1 Year of Chatbot Reliance Damaging Relationship

9 articles · Updated · The New York Times · May 30

A reader told the New York Times Ethicist that her partner has spent the past year using ChatGPT or Claude for nearly every decision, from emails and lease talks to processing the couple’s arguments.
Hours on the computer and daily chatbot conversations have started to displace time together, she said, and she was especially troubled when he praised A.I. for advice she had already given him.
The Ethicist said such dependence can amount to “de-skilling,” where technology erodes capacities people once practiced rather than simply saving time on routine tasks.
He argued the deeper risk is “constitutive” de-skilling—the weakening of critical thinking, judgment, empathy and imagination—and said it is understandable that outsourcing those traits could strain attraction and intimacy.

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