Don’t Fall in Love With Your Robot: How HR Can Prevent Employees From Developing Unhealthy Attachments to AI Systems
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Speaker Bios
- Andrea Elkon, Ascend Psychology and Wellness
- Michael Elkon, Fisher Phillips
- Rich Meneghello, Fisher Phillips
Library of Resources
Key Resources
- Don’t Fall in Love With Your Robot: 3 Steps Employers Can Take to Manage AI Attachments in the Workplace (Fisher Phillips, Aug. 2024)
- How People Are Really Using Gen AI in 2025 (Harvard Business Review, April 9)
- ELIZA effect at work: Avoiding emotional attachment to AI coworkers (IBM, April 22)
OpenAI Study + Initial Reactions
- Early methods for studying affective use and emotional well-being on ChatGPT (OpenAI, March 21)
- OpenAI Study Finds Links Between ChatGPT Use and Loneliness (Bloomberg, March 21) (subscription required)
- The robot empathy divide (Axios, March 23)
- Something Bizarre Is Happening to People Who Use ChatGPT a Lot (The Byte, March 24)
General Resources
- In Meta's AI future, your friends are bots (Axios, May 2)
- ChatGPT Users Are Developing Bizarre Delusions (Futurism, May 5)
- Is your chatbot your friend? How we’re forming emotional bonds with AI (Cosmos, June 9)
In The News
- Teen’s Suicide Turns Mother Against Google, AI Chatbot Startup (Bloomberg, March 18) (subscription required)
- Mixed messages on AI for teens (Axios, April 30)
- Florida judge rules AI chatbots not protected by First Amendment in Teen Suicide Case (Courthouse News Service, May 21)
Academic Studies
- Effects of Employee–Artificial Intelligence (AI) Collaboration on Counterproductive Work Behaviors (CWBs): Leader Emotional Support as a Moderator (National Library of Medicine, May 17)
- Using attachment theory to conceptualize and measure the experiences in human-AI relationships (Current Psychology, May 9)
- Operational Endings, Emotional Impacts: Ethical Considerations When Project Teams Form Attachments to AI Collaborators When Project Teams Form Attachments to AI Collaborators (Harrisburg University, May 2025)