As artificial intelligence enters domains closely bound to human emotion—companionship, communication, caregiving, and the maintenance of relationships—it brings more than technological convenience: it also reshapes the structure of intimacy. In an increasingly atomized society, people can connect more easily than ever, yet also find themselves more deeply alone. The arrival of AI further blurs the boundaries between companionship and simulation, response and understanding, relationship and function. Meanwhile, emerging possibilities such as AI-augmented humans and digital immortality are giving relationships between humans, between humans and machines, and between machines themselves forms radically different from those of the past.
The rapid development of artificial intelligence is already propelling humanity into another era of profound uncertainty. This is precisely why the significance of AI ethics extends far beyond supplying rules for particular technologies. Its first task is to clarify what kinds of new phenomena we are confronting, and what concepts and methods we need to understand them.