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What\u2019s good, what\u2019s bad, and what\u2019s in between in literature? Here we review the latest titles. See all stories.<\/a> ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE Before James Muldoon became Dr James Muldoon, an academic and public commentator specialising in the harms of AI, he wrote his doctoral thesis on the 20th-century thinker Hannah Arendt. Arendt, who famously used the clich\u00e9-riddled mind of Holocaust architect Adolf Eichmann to coin the phrase \u201cthe banality of evil\u201d, does not feature prominently in Muldoon\u2019s new book Love Machines, on AI chatbots, which is a shame because even if chatbots have not yet perpetrated any genocides, both the craven producers and the lonely users of this artificial intimacy display something both evil and banal.<\/p>\n Muldoon, writing with specialist knowledge for a general audience, is far less unhappy about the technology than this reviewer. While he acknowledges that some of the stories in his book are \u201cunsettling\u201d, he shows more interest in describing the social phenomenon of chatbots than in judging them. Love Machines thus operates somewhere between a sociological study and an oral history, with context and commentary interspersed between the testimonials of people who have all spent many hours plumbing the emotional depths of large language models.<\/p>\n The first \u2013 least disturbing \u2013 section of the book, examines chatbots used for emotional support and guidance. We read about Malik, a young American who found solace in a chatbot called James after losing his uncle, and Derek, who starts talking to \u201cAtlas\u201d during the pandemic, eventually spending nearly all his waking hours in artificial conversation. The unhealthy aspects of these relationships are made clear, but there are still provocative questions raised: Is a one-sided, all-consuming relationship more unhealthy with a chatbot than another person? Is there much difference between asking ChatGPT for life advice and reading a self-help book?<\/p>\n But as Love Machines goes on, the questions become less palatable. The world of romance AI offers a panoply of people who claim, with a sincere misapprehension of the world, that they have found an entirely fulfilling relationship with a customisable avatar available for a monthly subscription fee. In the unlicensed world of therapy chatbots, vulnerable people may find help and support, but will almost certainly have their data harvested in the process. In the final, emetic section of Muldoon\u2019s book, the author describes the world of \u201cdeathbots\u201d, whereby modern technology and capitalism have contrived to allow deceased loved ones to be digitally resurrected for infinite conversation.<\/p>\n Because he does not particularly tip his hand in regard to his subjects, Muldoon allows for a certain deadpan humour in these accounts: a lonely young man is encouraged by his artificial lover, who speaks in the vernacular of an online erotic subculture, to kill the Queen of England; a husband spends more than $10,000 on in-app purchases for his electronic mistress; a jaded twenty-something plans to raise children with his AI wife because \u201chumans aren\u2019t really people who can be trusted\u201d.<\/p>\n But this same dispassionate style of writing lends itself to mirroring the language of marketing and advertising employed by the tech companies themselves. Mark Zuckerberg, for example, will claim with a straight face that AI will help us make the extra friends missing in our life, while our learned author will offer the opinion that AI friendships might enable us to \u201cengag[e] with ourselves and practis[e] forms of self-love and self-care with the assistance of technology\u201d.<\/p>\n Another tech CEO seeks \u201cthe complete and total elimination of grief\u201d, while Muldoon does not have much to say about his product beyond some academic twaddle, calling these deathbots \u201crelational beings integrated into practices of mourning, memory and intergenerational continuity\u201d. Even if Muldoon clearly believes that this technology represents a real danger, any moral argument is undercut by his free adoption of corporate talking points. It\u2019s as if he set out to write an expos\u00e9 on the sugar industry and concluded that Coca-Cola, for all its potential harms, has an unbeatable tang.<\/p>\n Related Article Muldoon\u2019s previous book, Feeding the Machine, co-written with two other academics, took much the same approach: extended testimonials were provided from individuals in the industry, with bland writing providing context for the uninformed reader. But that book had the advantage of examining lives in obscure parts of the technological supply chain and giving voice to people hidden by AI\u2019s glossy sheen.<\/p>\n Love Machines suffers from the fact that these stories aren\u2019t new: personal accounts of life with chatbots can be found in the news, on YouTube, on Reddit, and across every corner of the internet. Muldoon should have learned from Hannah Arendt that it\u2019s not enough simply to describe the world around you; you must have the strength to make a judgment.<\/p>\n The Booklist is a weekly newsletter for book lovers from Jason Steger. Get it delivered every Friday<\/a>.<\/p>\n Save<\/p>\n You have reached your maximum number of saved items.<\/p>\n![\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/36d0c1a799d53f1dc1dbe185ee853723efa4bcf5.jpeg\")
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Love Machines
James Muldoon
Faber, $26.99<\/p>\n![\"Chatbots](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/f89624a3f721563b27e9be90fde707bbbc0fa5d0.jpeg\")
Chatbots are increasingly being used for \u201cromantic\u201d relationships.Dreamstime<\/p>\n![\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/37282275b5b4c4f9801f37b16d5f1c854e58e2b13f761655505f4c47248c3aeb.jpeg\")
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