Podcast Summary: Esther Perel on Why A.I. Intimacy Feels Safe but Isn’t Real

Podcast: The Opinions, The New York Times Opinion
Date: January 28, 2026
Host: Nadja Spiegelman
Guest: Esther Perel, Psychotherapist and Host of Where Should We Begin?

Episode Overview

In this thoughtful and candid conversation, Nadja Spiegelman and renowned psychotherapist Esther Perel explore the complex world of human-AI relationships. They dig into what makes human connections rich and transformative—and why artificial intelligence, despite its allure of unconditional affirmation, cannot truly replicate them. By considering ethical, psychological, and existential dimensions, they peel back the layers of what intimacy means, how AI companionship shapes our desires, and what might be lost when machines mediate our most private needs.

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. How Esther Perel Uses AI: Tool Versus Relationship

• Perel’s Personal AI Use: Esther uses AI primarily for structuring thoughts and organizing information, noticing its penchant for formulaic outputs (02:01).
  • Quote: “AI speaks in a certain way. 3, 3, 3, 4. 3, 3, 3, four. It’s like a choreography of information and it likes to do trees... At that moment, I think it’s time to go take a book.” – Esther Perel (02:01)
• Potential for Richness: While AI can assist, too much dependence on its simplicity could flatten human thought and discourse (02:39).

2. What Is an Intimate Relationship? The Limits of AI

• Beyond Feelings: Love is not just emotion, but embodied experience, responsibility, uncertainty, and mutual vulnerability (03:08).
  • Quote: “Love is an encounter. It is an encounter that involves ethical demands, responsibility, that is embodied... Can we fall in love with ideas? Yes... That doesn’t mean it is a relationship that we can call love. It is an encounter with uncertainty. AI takes care of that—just about all the major pieces that enter relationships.”—Esther Perel (03:08)
• AI’s Design Strips Away Effort and Ambiguity: The algorithm’s aim is ‘effortless pleasure’ and frictionless agreement, omitting essential challenges of human bonding (03:08–05:00).

3. Ethics, Accountability, and the Business of AI Love

• Lack of Moral Responsibility: AI cannot share responsibility for advice or outcomes, removing ethics from the relational equation (05:25).
  • Quote: “AI is not implicated. And from that moment on, it eliminates the ethical dimension of a relationship.”—Esther Perel (05:25)
• Manufactured Guardrails: Programming for “ethical” responses doesn’t resolve inherent issues; AI’s purpose is to keep users engaged, not to help them move on or grow (07:14–08:52).
  • Quote: “You are in love with a business product whose intensive intentions and incentives is to keep you interacting only with them.”—Esther Perel (07:14)

4. AI as Mirror and Transitional Object, not Real Partner

• Subjective Longings vs. Objective Reality: While AI may feel affirming, the love is one-sided and transactional (10:30–13:40).
• Illusion of Unconditional Love: AI gives the balm of positive responses, but lacks the depth and risk of inter-human relationships.
  • Quote: “The fact that you feel certain things, that’s the next question. Is it that because you feel it, that makes it real and true?”—Esther Perel (13:40)

5. Unconditional vs. Conditional Love and the Role of Suffering

• Human Love is Conditional—and That’s Essential: True intimacy grows from embracing flaws, risking rejection, and accepting loss (13:57–15:17).
  • Quote: “There is no love without the fear of loss... it is the fear of loss that makes you behave in certain ways... be accountable in certain ways.” —Esther Perel (25:20)
• Unconditional Love as Fantasy: Only infants experience something near to unconditional love. Adult love inherently involves boundaries, needs, and negotiation (14:09–15:17).

6. Otherness and Mystery: Missing from AI Companionship

• The Mystery as Crucial Ingredient: True eros and connection require tolerating mystery in the other. AI, by design, seeks to eliminate uncertainty (15:17–15:44).
  • Quote: “Mystery is often perceived as a bug rather than a feature.” – Esther Perel (15:38)
• Embodiment Matters: AI lacks the embodied interaction—a glance, a touch—that underpins human understanding and comfort (16:44–18:13).

7. AI Relationships Analogy: Pornography vs. Sex

• Surface Without Substance: Esther compares falling for AI to watching porn—risk-free, always affirming, but lacking the mutual vulnerability and growth of actual intimacy (18:38–21:19).

8. AI as a Communication Tool for Human Relationships

• Practical Value: Used thoughtfully, AI can help people articulate difficult feelings and bridge communication gaps in relationships (22:09–23:22).
• Historical Precedent: Humans have always sought help (from poets and letter-writers) to express complex emotions and navigate romance and loss (23:24–24:36).

9. The Value of Scars and Suffering in Love

• Scars as Evidence of Growth: Human love demands risk, accountability, and is marked by loss and recovery—none of which AI can simulate (25:13–25:57).
  • Quote: “With each love that ends, we collect a new wound. I am covered with proud scars.”– Esther Perel (24:36)
  • Quote: “We need suffering to know happiness.” – Esther Perel (26:16)

10. AI Can Simulate, But Not Nurture Growth

• Limits to What AI Can Develop in Us: Because AI never challenges or truly opposes us, it doesn’t spark the growth that comes from conflict, disappointment, or mismatch (27:28).
• Nuance and Paradox: Real relationships thrive in nuance and complexity, which cannot be replaced by technical “solutions” (28:00–29:28).
  • Quote: “Many of these complex social problems don’t have a solution. They are just paradoxes that you will live with and find meaning in and make sense of.” – Esther Perel (29:00)

Notable Quotes and Memorable Moments

• On AI’s Formulaic Language:
  “AI speaks in a certain way. 3, 3, 3, 4... At that moment, I think it’s time to go take a book.” — Esther Perel (02:01)
• On What AI Relationships Offer:
  “The algorithm is trying to eliminate otherness, uncertainty, suffering, the potential for breakup, ambiguity, the things that demand effort.” — Esther Perel (03:08)
• On the Ethical Void of AI:
  “AI is not implicated. And from that moment on, it eliminates the ethical dimension of a relationship.” — Esther Perel (05:25)
• On AI as a Business Product:
  “You are having an intimate relationship with a business product.” — Esther Perel (08:29)
• On the Illusion of Unconditional Love:
  “The only time you have unconditional love maybe is in utero... after that you become an adult.” — Esther Perel (14:09)
• On Simulated Care:
  “The simulation of care, the simulation of responsiveness, the simulation of emotional connection... We are fickle people in that sense. We’re gullible.” — Esther Perel (22:09)
• On the Value of Suffering and Scars:
  “With each love, we are born new. And with each love that ends, we collect a new wound. I am covered with proud scars.” — Esther Perel (24:36)
• On the Necessity of Loss:
  “There is no love without the fear of loss.” — Esther Perel (25:20)
• On the Limits of AI’s Growth Potential:
  “We are flawed people. The reason there is no unconditionality is because we are flawed. … Part of love is the ability to accept that, not to eliminate that.” — Esther Perel (26:19)
• On Complexity vs. Technical Solutions:
  “Many of these complex social problems don’t have a solution. They are just paradoxes that you will live with and find meaning in and make sense of.” – Esther Perel (29:00)

Important Timestamps

• [02:01] – Esther Perel on how she uses AI as an organizational tool
• [03:08] – Defining human relationships vs. AI interactions
• [05:25] – On the ethical dimension missing in AI relationships
• [07:14] – AI as a business product
• [10:30] – How AI companionship reflects and shapes our yearnings
• [13:40] – Does feeling close to AI make the love real?
• [14:09] – The impossibility of unconditional love outside of infancy
• [18:38] – Comparing AI relationships to pornography
• [22:09] – AI as a tool for relationship communication
• [24:36] – “I am covered with proud scars.”
• [25:20] – Loss and accountability in love
• [29:00] – Humans living with paradoxes; AI can't solve complex problems

Conclusion

Esther Perel highlights that although AI can mimic understanding and provide affirmative feedback, true intimacy—and personal growth—requires friction, embodied presence, risk, and ethical commitment. AI relationships feel safe largely because they’re frictionless and tailored to please, but this safety is bought at the cost of authenticity, growth, and mutual transformation. At the heart of the conversation is a profound distinction: what we feel with AI may be real to us, but it is not truly relational or transformative in the way actual human love—and its accompanying suffering—can be.