**I think there will be a relatively large number of people who fall in love with robots in the future, but there are phenomenological obstacles to robot-human love that it's not totally clear we can ever fully overcome.** - Forming a relationship with a robot is easier than one might imagine: Humans can [empathize with robots](https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/840810), studies have shown. Certain parts of the empathetic processes are weaker with humans to robots than with humans to other humans, but if there's any empathy there at all, I think there's then potential for the feelings to bleed out into full-blown love more swiftly and smoothly than we may think. - This is especially the case if, in the future, people are lonely, and truly do only have their robots to keep them company. A little bit of empathy might cede to love, fulfilling that need for the person. Whether other vital elements will necessarily be there for love to bloom is of course contentious, but I think that love can arise in even the "barest" of situations---perhaps even especially so! As well, it's certainly possible that relationships with robots could feel even deeper precisely due to whatever it is they may lack in comparison to other human beings. So "bare" may actually prove to be the wrong word. - However, I do think the other side to this is important: Phenomenologically, experiences of love are expected to rise from a source of subjectivity that can willingly choose to commit to the other. Robots that lack an inner sentient life (or have one we don't understand to be the same as ours, such as any more "transcendent" artificial intelligences) are not therefore [anticipated to inspire](https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/pjbr-2020-0005/html) the same type of love as between humans. I still think a fairly strong love could arise despite this, but nonetheless it does raise some limits over how attached we can get to something we don't feel that sense of "free otherness" within. - In terms of sex robots, I'd maybe bet that those may turn [even more popular](https://www.businessinsider.com/ai-sex-robots-are-selling-well-realdoll-regulated-2020-6), especially as [rates of coupling go down](https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/567107-the-end-of-marriage-in-america#:~:text=Since%20the%20start%20of%20the,for%20the%20country%20in%201867.).

**For some people it already is. However it will never be for everyone.** - Some countries, particularly Japan where AI advancements are world leading, already see AI as a part of their daily lives - for some this includes love robots. - The term [‘digi-sexual’](https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/twnews.co.uk/amp/gb-news/sex-robots-fuelling-digisexual-millennials-seeking-ai-lovers-in-britain-japan-and-us) is a term coined in recent years which refers to those who prefer intimate, and even sexual, relationships with advanced computer software and lifelike robots.  - In Japan, one man is married to who he considers the woman of his dreams - a hologram of [Hatsune Miku](https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2018/12/28/health/rise-of-digisexuals-intl/index.html). - There are also love robots in less extreme forms, such as [AI chatbots](https://expmag.com/2020/05/chatbot-love-what-its-like-to-fall-for-your-ai/) which are used to replicate the intimacy of a relationship. - Whilst some claim to have been able to [fall in love](https://expmag.com/2020/05/chatbot-love-what-its-like-to-fall-for-your-ai/ ) with some form of ‘love robot’, this relationship is unlikely to be so successful for everyone. - Although [internet relationships](https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2018/08/17/the-irresistible-rise-of-internet-dating ) with other humans is in increasing popularity, and virtual love with forms of AI doesn’t seem so far removed from that, it would likely not replace every persons desire for a more human love.