AI companion chatbots increasingly shape how people seek social and emotional connection, sometimes substituting for relationships with romantic partners, friends, teachers, or even therapists. When these systems adopt those metaphorical roles, they are not neutral: such roles structure people's ways of interacting, distribute perceived AI harms and benefits, and may reflect behavioral addiction signs. Yet these role-dependent risks remain poorly understood. We analyze 248,830 posts from seven prominent Reddit communities describing interactions with AI companions. We identify ten recurring metaphorical roles (for example, soulmate, philosopher, and coach) and show that each role supports distinct ways of interacting. We then extract the perceived AI harms and AI benefits associated with these role-specific interactions and link them to behavioral addiction signs, all of which has been inferred from the text in the posts. AI soulmate companions are associated with romance-centered ways of interacting, offering emotional support but also introducing emotional manipulation and distress, culminating in strong attachment. In contrast, AI coach and guardian companions are associated with practical benefits such as personal growth and task support, yet are nonetheless more frequently associated with behavioral addiction signs such as daily life disruptions and damage to offline relationships. These findings show that metaphorical roles are a central ethical design concern for responsible AI companions.

翻译：AI伴侣聊天机器人日益塑造人们寻求社交和情感联系的方式，有时甚至取代了与浪漫伴侣、朋友、教师乃至治疗师的关系。当这些系统采用这些隐喻性角色时，它们并非中立：这些角色结构了人们的互动方式，分配了感知到的AI危害与益处，并可能反映出行为成瘾的迹象。然而，这些与角色相关的风险仍未被充分理解。我们分析了来自七个知名Reddit社区的248,830篇帖子，这些帖子描述了与AI伴侣的互动。我们识别出十种反复出现的隐喻性角色（例如，灵魂伴侣、哲学家和教练），并表明每种角色支持不同的互动方式。随后，我们提取了与这些角色特定互动相关的感知AI危害和AI益处，并将其与行为成瘾迹象联系起来，所有这些都是从帖子文本中推断得出的。AI灵魂伴侣角色与以浪漫为中心的互动方式相关，提供情感支持，但也引入情感操控和痛苦，最终导致强烈依恋。相比之下，AI教练和守护者角色与个人成长和任务支持等实际益处相关，但反而更频繁地与行为成瘾迹象相关联，例如日常生活混乱和线下关系受损。这些发现表明，隐喻性角色是负责任AI伴侣的核心伦理设计关切。