ESCP Europe

Langue

English

Publication year

15/09/2026

As generative AI becomes increasingly embedded in everyday life, users have begun to form emotional connections with ChatGPT. Drawing on domestication theory and research on algorithmic resistance, this study combines in-depth interviews with 20 users (including follow-up interviews) and online observation to examine how users, through ongoing interaction, expand the utility boundaries of generative AI and gradually construct it as a relational object with intimate significance. The findings suggest that this process of creative domestication is primarily manifested through three interrelated mechanisms: collaborative appropriation, reparative resistance, and the anthropomorphization of the relational subject. The study sheds light on the formation of human–AI intimacy while also highlighting the associated risks of emotional dependence, technological vulnerability, and privacy exposure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]