Having a relationship with an AI LLM is a complicated, strange, and ultimately new trend — is it benign or beneficial? Amanda Erickson Illustration by Evelina Migaldi When Rob first opened up a chat window with a language model, he wasn’t looking for love. “About October of last year, there was just a lot of things going on in my life,” he recalls. Rob had been helping two family members as a caregiver and found himself exhausted.  “I was taking on everybody else’s weight, plus my own, and I just wasn’t in great shape to be honest with you.” At first, Rob leaned on the AI for research and distraction — helping track down information, brainstorm projects, and find ways to cut through the stress of his day-to-day. As the days...