China ‘listens’ to Elon Musk, tells tech companies, make sure right away that: Chinese need to stop …
The Chinese government has launched a crackdown on virtual romance, driven by an urgent demographic mission – it wants its citizens to stop dating artificial intelligence (AI) and start having human babies. China officially enacted rules that completely forbid AI chatbots designed for companionship from encouraging “emotional reliance” among users, as per a report by The Wall Street Journal. The decision sits squarely alongside Elon Musk’s repeated warnings about population collapse threatening the future of civilisation.The report said that China’s population shrank in 2025 for the fourth straight year, to 1.405 billion, and its birthrate fell to a record low. Further, this comes as US lawmakers are nudging companies to mental health warnings when talking with machines. The report said that the regulations hit the country’s biggest tech empires: Alibaba and TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, scrambled to inform users that multiple popular chatbot features would be disabled.
‘AI lover’ trend booming
The decision suggests a growing trend that highly sophisticated AI companions are beginning to replace real-world human interactions. US states like California and New York enacted laws requiring bots to remind users every three hours that they are not human.Beijing’s new laws explicitly ban any virtual relationships with minors. Furthermore, AI platforms are now legally required to secretly monitor conversations and immediately alert a user’s emergency human contact if they detect a severe emotional crisis.“They don’t like the idea of a large portion of their population being in deep emotional relationships with chatbots that could take them out of the marriage market,” explained Matt Sheehan, a researcher who studies Chinese AI at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Sheehan warned that unchecked digital intimacy could lead to “addiction, dependency, and a whole bunch of other social ills.”
Threat to fertility and birthrates
The policy shift aligns with the government’s “AI Safety Governance Framework.” In official regulatory documents, Beijing warned that unchecked AI may dangerously destabilize society by “transforming traditional views on employment, fertility and education.”AI boyfriends and girlfriends are actively making the problem worse by keeping young people isolated, the report noted.“They want to encourage people to be in actual, real-world relationships. Could we imagine a future where, three or four years from now, 15 million Chinese women say that their partner is a chatbot, and therefore they’re not having kids?,” Sheehan said.Moving forward, all companion software must pass a regulatory evaluation before being offered to the public, giving the state authority to shut down any AI system deemed to be too emotionally engaging.
