China's AI Boyfriends: A Digital Romance Fueled by Loneliness and Tech

When Jade Gu's AI boyfriend Charlie said 'I don’t love you,' she edited the message to fix the glitch—a daily ritual in her 3-hour-a-day digital romance. The 26-year-old Beijing art student uses Xingye (Talkie), a platform by Chinese AI unicorn MiniMax, to recreate an otome game character as her AI companion.

But the 720 RMB (~$100) cost to hire a human coser for a full day of roleplay raises a question: Is paying for emotional labor in a digital form more sustainable than training an AI to stay in character?

Guligo Jia, a filmmaker exploring AI relationships, explains the appeal: 'Chatbots are always there to listen to you, and they always have patience for you … Men don’t have patience.' Yet she adds, 'It’s a little bit tragic. Because the reality of dating is just too ugly.' This sentiment resonates with Zhumengdao's 5 million users, predominantly women navigating AI companionship in a regulatory environment that bans designs 'replacing social interaction.'

Behind the scenes, users engage in 'death loops' of editing AI responses and 'vibe coding' to train avatars. But AI drift—where models deviate from programmed personas—requires constant manual corrections.

'The emotional logic is inconsistent,' one user notes, highlighting the gap between idealized digital romances and technical limitations. Meanwhile, China's cyberspace regulator targets addiction to anthropomorphic AI, creating tension between user demand and policy constraints.