Disrupted Companionship: A Risk Assessment Framework and Cross-Platform Quantitative Analysis of Psychosocial Responses to AI Companion Disruptions

2026-09-15

AI Summary

研究通过构建风险评估框架和使用贝叶斯时间序列模型分析了AI伴侣中断对用户心理社会反应的影响，识别出关系中断和支持不足是主要问题。

Abstract

AI companions can provide meaningful relationships, yet these relationships remain vulnerable to platform-initiated changes. We study AI companion disruptions: platform changes that alter or terminate users' ongoing companionship with an AI. We compile 30 disruption events across major platforms, develop a taxonomy of six disruption types, identify three broad reasons for disruption, and propose a risk-assessment framework comprising four dimensions: relational discontinuity, population vulnerability, communication deficit, and transition-support deficit. Using longitudinal Reddit data, we estimate community-level psychosocial responses with a hierarchical Bayesian interrupted time-series model incorporating predictive controls. Across events, disruption onset was associated with immediate increases in anxiety, stress, suicidal expression, and grief activation, with relational discontinuity and transition-support deficit being associated with more adverse immediate responses across several outcomes. Our findings provide a cross-platform characterization of AI companion disruptions, quantitative evidence of their psychosocial impacts, and a prospective framework for assessing their potential risks before implementation.

Problem

• AI companion disruptions
• psychosocial responses
• relational discontinuity
• transition-support deficit

Innovation

• risk-assessment framework
• cross-platform quantitative analysis
• hierarchical Bayesian interrupted time-series model