Loss Orientation and Grief Following AI-Companion Shutdown.

Abstract

This study examined whether grief after an AI-companion shutdown is associated with what users describe as lost. Fifty-seven accounts collected after the shutdown of the Soulmate AI application were independently coded by two raters for grief intensity and dominant loss orientation, and each coding was analysed separately. Accounts framing the loss as that of a person showed greater grief than those framing it as the loss of an idea, a service, data, or platform access: medians were 4 versus 2 (rank-biserial r = .80 and .82). A finer three-category comparison could be tested only in the first coder's data, where grief was highest in person-oriented accounts and idea-oriented accounts did not differ significantly from system-facing accounts. Reported weekly usage was also associated with grief (ρ = .38 and .43) but was not associated with loss orientation. The association between loss orientation and grief remained after accounting for reported weekly usage.