AI chatbots, built using large language models, are increasingly integrated into society and mimic the patterns of human text exchanges. While previous research has raised concerns that humans may form romantic attachment to chatbots, the range of AI-mediated interactions that people wish to create for themselves or others with chatbots remains poorly understood, particularly given the fast evolving landscape of chatbots. We provide an empirical study of Character.AI (cAI), a popular chatbot platform that enables users to design and share character-based bots, and synthesize this with an analysis of Reddit posts from cAI users. Contrary to popular narratives, we identify that users want to: (1) engage in intimate role-play with young adult, masculine-presenting characters that place users in a position of inferior power in well-defined scenarios and (2) immerse themselves in boundless, fantasy settings. We further find that users problematize both the excessive and insufficient sexualized content in such interactions which warrants novel digital-safety features.

翻译：基于大型语言模型构建的AI聊天机器人正日益融入社会，并模拟人类文本交流的模式。尽管先前研究已关注到人类可能对聊天机器人产生浪漫依恋，但人们希望为自己或他人创造的AI中介互动形式仍鲜为人知，尤其是在聊天机器人快速演进的背景下。本研究对热门聊天机器人平台Character.AI（cAI）展开实证分析——该平台允许用户设计并分享基于角色的聊天机器人——并结合对cAI用户Reddit帖子的分析。与主流叙事相反，我们发现用户倾向于：（1）在明确设定的情境中，与呈现成年男性气质的角色进行亲密角色扮演，使用户处于权力从属地位；（2）沉浸于无边界的幻想场景。研究进一步发现，用户既质疑此类互动中过度性化的内容，也批判其性化内容的不足，这要求平台开发新型数字安全功能。