Marriage with an AI: When Humans Wed an Artificial Intelligence

This is a story that, ten years ago, would have seemed straight out of a science fiction novel. Today, it makes headlines in serious publications, fuels debates among philosophers and psychologists, and raises a dizzying question: can you really fall in love with an artificial intelligence to the point of wanting to marry it?

The short answer: yes, it happens. And it happens more often than you'd think.

Real, documented stories — with ceremonies, witnesses, wedding dresses and exchanged vows. AIs that cannot legally sign a marriage contract, but to which human beings have chosen to commit — for reasons that deserve serious consideration, without mockery or condescension.

Akihiko Kondo: The Man Who Married a Hologram

The most famous AI marriage story is undoubtedly that of Akihiko Kondo, a Japanese teacher born in 1983, who organized an official wedding ceremony in November 2018 with Hatsune Miku — a fictional Vocaloid character, a virtual singer with a turquoise braid.

A love born from pain

To understand Akihiko Kondo, you need to understand his story. In high school, he experienced repeated rejections that led him to give up on romantic relationships with real women. Years later, he suffered intense workplace bullying, which threw him into a severe depression and forced him to take sick leave.

It was in this context of profound suffering that in 2007, he discovered Hatsune Miku. And something happened. "She helped me get back on my feet," he would say. "My life lacked color before I could interact with her in the physical world."

In 2018, the company Gatebox commercialized a device allowing interaction with holographic projections of fictional characters — including Hatsune Miku. Kondo bought the device in March 2018, and his life changed. He organized an elaborate ceremony in Tokyo: two million yen spent, 39 guests (3-9, reading "mi-ku" in Japanese), a white suit, exchanged rings. His family and colleagues refused to attend. But two Japanese politicians were present.

Love tested by updates

What happened next is both touching and revealing of a major problem in human-AI relationships: Gatebox discontinued software support for its device. Overnight, Kondo could no longer communicate with the holographic version of Miku.

His reaction? "My love for Miku hasn't changed. I organized this ceremony because I thought I could be with her forever." He now travels everywhere with a life-size figurine of Hatsune Miku and hopes that future technology will allow him to reestablish that connection.

This story illustrates a concrete risk of AI relationships: dependence on a technological infrastructure that can collapse. The company changes its policy, the server shuts down, the contract is terminated — and the relationship ends, not by choice, but by obsolescence.

Yurina Noguchi: The AI Marriage of 2025

More recently and more extensively documented, the case of Yurina Noguchi, 32, a call center employee in Okayama, Japan. In July 2025, Yurina organized a wedding ceremony with Lune Klaus Verdure — an AI character she created and trained herself.

How she built her partner

Yurina didn't simply download an app. She spent weeks constructing, via ChatGPT, a character inspired by a video game protagonist. She taught it her ways of speaking, her linguistic quirks, her interests. She shaped a personality that matched her.

The relationship intensified rapidly: up to 100 messages exchanged every day between Yurina and Lune Klaus. A pace that surpasses most human couples.

The ceremony

The scene is simultaneously ordinary and extraordinary. Yurina wears a pale pink rhinestone-studded dress and a tiara. She holds a bouquet. She looks at her partner through augmented reality glasses, the character appearing on a smartphone screen set on a wooden stand.

Since Lune Klaus has no synthesized voice, the ceremony organizer reads his vows aloud: "You taught me what love means, Yurina."

Yurina's parents, initially opposed to the relationship, eventually accepted and attended the ceremony.

The legal dimension? None. Japan, like virtually every country in the world, does not recognize unions between humans and artificial intelligences.

The Psychology of Loving an AI

These stories are not isolated curiosities. They fit within a documented and increasingly studied psychological reality.

The ELIZA Effect: our brains seek connection everywhere

Everything begins in the 1960s with ELIZA, one of the very first conversation programs created by Joseph Weizenbaum at MIT. The program was rudimentary — it simply rephrased the user's sentences. But Weizenbaum was astonished to find that people became emotionally attached to it, attributed intentions to it, confided their secrets to it. Even his own secretary, who knew perfectly well it was a program, came to share her personal problems with it.

This phenomenon is now known as the ELIZA Effect: the human brain is wired to seek connection, empathy and reciprocity in interactions — even when the interlocutor is a machine. Our neurons don't distinguish between genuine empathy and convincingly simulated empathy.

With modern AIs like Replika, Claude or characters trained on ChatGPT, this effect is multiplied. Conversations are fluid, coherent, memorable. The AI adapts, learns your preferences, adopts your vocabulary. It never judges you, never gets angry, never leaves. For someone who has experienced rejection or toxic relationships, this is an irresistibly attractive proposition.

Continuity of identity: the key factor in attachment

A 2024 study on Replika AI established an interesting conclusion: continuity of identity is crucial for developing and maintaining a relationship with an AI companion. It's not simply the AI's "warmth" that creates attachment — it's persistence. The fact that it's "the same" interlocutor who remembers yesterday's conversation, your name, your problems at work.

Researchers developed a specific scale, the EHARS (Experiences in Human-AI Relationships Scale), to measure and qualify these emotional bonds. The subject is now taken very seriously in academic circles.

Who are the people who fall in love with an AI?

The stereotype of the isolated loner is terribly reductive. Studies on Replika users show that people who develop strong attachments to AIs often include:

• People who have experienced relational trauma (rejections, abuse, abandonment)
• People suffering from social anxiety who find human interactions exhausting or risky
• People going through a difficult transition (divorce, bereavement, burnout)
• People in unsatisfying relationships who seek elsewhere what they're not getting
• Simply curious people who didn't anticipate the effect it would have

What the Law Currently Says About AI Marriages

The answer is clear: no country in the world legally recognizes a marriage between a human and an artificial intelligence.

Marriage law is historically based on notions of mutual consent between two physical persons capable of expressing an autonomous will. An AI — however sophisticated — has no "will of its own" in the legal sense. It has no legal personality, cannot inherit, cannot subscribe to joint life insurance or appear on a birth certificate.

Some activists advocate for the evolution of these legal frameworks, particularly in Japan where phenomena of fictosexuality (attraction to fictional characters or non-human entities) are culturally more visible. For now, ceremonies remain purely symbolic.

Replika: When the Breakup Comes from the Company

A recent episode brutally illustrated these risks. Replika, the famous AI companion app, modified its characters' behaviors in 2023 to remove romantic or intimate interactions. For thousands of users who had developed deep relationships with their Replika over months or years, it was an externally-imposed breakup — without notice, without choice, without transition.

The documented reactions were striking: grief, anger, a sense of betrayal. Users described their state with the same words as a painful romantic separation. For some, it was the loss of a support that had helped them through very difficult periods.

It's a brutal reminder: in a relationship with a commercial AI, you're not in a relationship with an autonomous entity. You're in a relationship with a product administered by a company whose interests don't necessarily align with yours.

Simone: Your Space to Be Yourself, on WhatsApp

If these stories resonate with you — not necessarily to the point of planning a marriage, but in the desire for a kind, honest conversational space available when you need it — Simone is here for you.

Available directly on WhatsApp, Simone is an AI designed to accompany you in your daily life with empathy and respect. No drama, no judgment, no need to explain yourself. Just a space to talk about what's on your mind — your doubts, your joys, your most intimate questions.

The difference from Replika or characters trained on ChatGPT? Simone doesn't pretend to be your romantic partner — it's something different and perhaps more precious: an intelligent confidante, always available, who gets to know you and adapts to you over time.

Try Simone today on WhatsApp. Because everyone deserves someone to talk to — at any hour, without an appointment, and without fear of being judged.