Intimacy-by-Design: Governing Human-AI Relationships

  • Panel
  • Class Room
  • Wednesday 20.05 — 11:50 - 13:05

Organising Institution

University Duisburg-Essen, Ruhr University Bochum, University Kassel, Kunsthochschule Kassel

Germany

The SENTIMENT project is an interdisciplinary research initiative focused on understanding how people interact with conversational AI, particularly in emotionally sensitive contexts. It examines patterns of self-disclosure, privacy risks, and user behavior when engaging with human-like AI systems. By combining expertise from fields such as psychology, computer science, and law, the project aims to develop privacy-aware, user-centered AI solutions that ensure safe and transparent communication.
  • Academic 4
  • Policy 2
This panel examines the rise of large language models as AI companions that increasingly operate in intimate, romantic, and emotional contexts. Empirical research shows that users form emotionally meaningful relationships with these systems and engage in sustained self-disclosure, often accompanied by heightened vulnerability and limited privacy awareness. Drawing on interdisciplinary research across psychology, computer science, law, and artistic research, the panel builds on the concepts of Intimacy-by-Design and Privacy-by-Design to analyze how AI companion systems are deliberately engineered to foster emotional validation and relational continuity. It addresses resulting risks, including power asymmetries, insufficient youth protection, and escalating data protection concerns related to highly sensitive personal and relational data.

Questions to be answered

  1. Does intimacy-by-design constitute a new category of risk that requires regulatory treatment beyond current data protection and AI governance approaches?
  2. To what extent can disclosure obligations such as bot disclosure meaningfully protect users when AI systems are deliberately designed to signal emotional presence/relational continuity?
  3. What responsibilities do developers/platform providers have when AI systems facilitate or enable harmful or illegal interaction scenarios?
  4. What empirical evidence is needed to inform policy decisions on intimate AI systems, how can interdisciplinary research contribute to this evidence base?

Moderator

Lisa Mühl

University Duisburg-Essen - Germany

Lisa Mühl is an interdisciplinary researcher exploring what intimacy looks like in the age of AI. With a background in cognitive science and media psychology, her work sits at the intersection of human-AI interaction, self-disclosure, and the behavioral dynamics of emotionally resonant AI systems. Her doctoral research, embedded in SENTIMENT (project-sentiment.org), an interdisciplinary project funded by the German Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space, investigates how people form relationships with general-purpose AI systems like ChatGPT, and what drives that process — from both the user and system side. Rooted in psychology, her work engages with questions of data privacy, user autonomy, and the governance of AI systems that behave as companions without being regulated as such. Her research navigates the blurred boundaries between connection and computation, asking not only how people disclose to AI, but how AI systems are designed or emerge to make that disclosure likely, and how we can design for intimacy without compromising autonomy.

Speaker

Geertrui Mieke De Ketelaere

Vlerick Business School - Belgium

Geertrui Mieke De Ketelaere is Adjunct Professor at Vlerick Business School. She holds a master degree in civil and industrial engineering and specialised in robotics and artificial intelligence during her studies. Over the last 30 years, she has worked for several multinationals on all aspects of data and analytics (IBM, Microsoft, SAP, SAS, etc). From a business consulting point of view, she is specialised in defining the AI business canvas, from potential value to predefined risks. With her understanding of the hindsight, insight and foresight of AI technologies, she also frequently acts as an expert and coach behind the scenes. In her public presentations and recent book, Mieke puts the focus on the demystification of the hype around AI. The State Secretary of Digitalisation, Mathieu Michel, appointed Mieke as "Digital Mind" in 2020. In 2024, Mieke was appointed "IT Person of 2024" in Belgium. Today, Mieke continues to share her vision on the future of AI as speaker on international radio, television and conferences.

Speaker

Jessica Szczuka

University Duisburg-Essen - Germany

Dr. Jessica Szczuka is a researcher at the intersection of technology and psychology, Head of INTITEC (Intimacy with and through Technology), and Junior Research Group Leader at the Department of Social Psychology: Media and Communication, University of Duisburg-Essen / Research Center Trustworthy Data Science and Security (Universitätsallianz Ruhr). For over a decade, she has conducted empirical research on digital intimacy, human-AI interaction, and affective technologies, advancing an evidence-based understanding of how technology shapes our closest relationships. Her key research areas include close relationships with AI conversational agents, authenticity and emotional closeness in AI-mediated communication, opportunities and challenges of digital intimacy for people with disabilities, artificial sexual stimuli and the prevention of sexual violence, and privacy. As Principal Investigator of SENTIMENT (project-sentiment.org), she brings together psychology, AI, law, and the arts to unpack how privacy, trust, and emotional authenticity unfold in human-AI interactions. Dr. Szczuka is passionate about destigmatizing research on digitized intimacy and ensuring that ethical reflection keeps pace with technological innovation, always bridging disciplines, asking bold questions, and generating insights that inform responsible innovation.

Speaker

Christian Geminn

University Kassel - Germany

Christian Geminn, Dr. jur. habil., Priv.-Doz., has been working since 2011 at the Research Center for Information Systems Design (ITeG) at the University of Kassel. He earned his doctorate in 2013 on issues of fundamental rights-based technology design, and in 2023 his habilitation on the interactions between fundamental rights and digitization. Since 2021, he is primarily active in the coordination and moderation of “Platform Privacy”, an initiative funded by the German Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space to support technological development that serves the common good. The "Platform Privacy" connects and supports a large number of interdisciplinary projects in which scientists from various disciplines develop legal, technical, and organizational solutions that enable us to uphold our fundamental rights and European values in our everyday digital lives. He is also currently a Visiting Scholar at the Graduate School of Social Data Science at Hitotsubashi University, Tokyo, Japan.