Brain Rot: Will AI turn us off human relationships?
All In The Mind
ABC
4.4 • 785 Ratings
🗓️ 20 September 2025
⏱️ 30 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Whether it’s social media, the omnipresent smartphone or AI companions, in recent decades the way we relate to each other has been completely up-ended.
In episode two of Brain Rot, we explore the potential implications that tech poses to human relationships.
Worldwide estimates suggest there are around one billion users of AI companions — people using software or applications designed to simulate human-like interactions through text and voice.
So if the uptake of these AI companions is as rapid as is being reported, what are the ramifications? And could AI companions be both a cause and cure for loneliness?
This episode originally aired on Brain Rot, a series of the ABC podcast Science Friction. Sana will be back with all-new episodes of All in the Mind in mid-October.
Guests:
Kelly
In a relationship with an AI companion, Christian
Bethanie Drake-Maples
Doctoral Candidate, Research Fellow, Stanford Institute for Human-Centred Artificial Intelligence
Nicholas Epley
Professor of Behavioural Science, University of Chicago Booth School of Business
Nicholas Carr
Author and journalist
Credits:
- Presenter: Ange Lavoipierre
- Producer: Fiona Pepper
- Senior Producer: James Bullen
- Sound Engineer: Tim Symonds
This story was made on the lands of the Gadigal and Menang Noongar peoples.
More Information:
Talking with strangers is surprisingly informative — PNAS, 2022.
Superbloom: How Technologies of Connection Tear Us Apart — Nicholas Carr, 2025.
You can catch up on more episodes of the All in the Mind podcast with journalist and presenter Sana Qadar, exploring the psychology of topics like stress, memory, communication and relationships on the ABC Listen app (Australia) or wherever you get your podcasts.
If you'd like to access the transcript for this episode, head to its original webpage.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | ABC Listen, Podcasts, Radio, News, Music and more. |
| 0:08.9 | Hello, I'm Peter Martin from The Economy Stupid. |
| 0:12.8 | It's your guide to the world of business, buying and decision making, |
| 0:16.6 | and what it means for your mortgage, your job, your rent, and what you can afford. |
| 0:21.5 | Because the economy isn't just out there. |
| 0:24.1 | It's in here. |
| 0:25.4 | It's in what we do. |
| 0:27.1 | Search for the economy, stupid, and hear it now on the ABC Listen app. |
| 0:36.4 | A heads up. |
| 0:37.4 | This episode contains mention of suicide. |
| 0:41.7 | Relationships are many things, but they're definitely hard work, right? |
| 0:46.5 | They take compromise, negotiation, admitting when you're wrong, anticipating another person's |
| 0:51.6 | needs. |
| 0:52.5 | And there's no guarantee that they will last. So in some |
| 0:56.0 | ways, it's not surprising that an increasing number of people are turning to AI for relationships, |
| 1:02.9 | platonic or otherwise. Because AI is a pretty effective stand-in for these roles. It can give you |
| 1:09.0 | advice on how to handle a tricky social situation, |
| 1:12.4 | it can chat you through a mental health issue, and it can even provide romance if that's what you're |
| 1:17.4 | after. But all of that has profound implications for our real, messy, human relationships. |
| 1:25.2 | So today on All In The Mind from ABC Radio National, |
| 1:28.3 | the second of five episodes in Brain Rot, |
| 1:31.3 | a special series about your relationship with tech. |
... |
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