In light of the recent cancellation of RightsCon 2026, SRHM, in collaboration with the Queensland University of Technology, is supporting Instituto de Investigaciones Gino Germani, CONICET, the NOMADIC project and other organisations, to host this session that were scheduled to take place, to ensure these important conversations continue.

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This session examines the rise of "artificial intimacy" and emotional capitalism as the next frontier of AI.

In 2023, the World Health Organization launched an international commission on loneliness, declaring it a global public health issue. Their 2025 report found that 1 in 6 people worldwide experience loneliness-most common among youth and in lower-income countries.

Amid this crisis, digital technologies that often exacerbate isolation are now selling "artificial empathy" as a cure, promising flawless, subservient affection on demand. After trying to model attributes such as intelligence and creativity, AI is moving into empathy.

Large language models simulate emotions to deliver frictionless companionship, but at a cost: emotional dependency, critical thinking decline through "cognitive offloading," reinforcement of biases, and the commodification of vulnerability. Users are discovering the harsh realities of "attachment-as-a-service," where corporate control means that their AI partner can be locked behind a paywall, lobotomized by a software update, or deleted altogether if the company shuts down.

Far from harmless, this artificial care is built upon real world consequences and human trauma, relying on exploited human labor of underpaid and overexposed workers that are sanitizing AI systems, as well as massive ecological costs.

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A RightsCon session hosted by Sexual and Reproductive Health Matters (SRHM), in collaboration with the Queensland University of Technology (QUT), following the cancellation of RightsCon 2026.

Read Defending Sexual and Reproductive Rights in the Aftermath of the RightsCon Cancellation by Zahra Stardust.

Contact the host of Emotional capitalism and artificial intimacy: Have you paid the subscription to your partner?