The 'Attachment Economy' is now coming to your desk

"The Attention Economy concept was first articulated by economist Herbert A. Simon in 1971. He wrote that 'a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention.' The idea was first applied to television and advertising, but really became central in this century with the arrival of social networking."

"The mere grabbing of attention is no longer enough to win in the global competition for users' time. Companies now see an opportunity to use AI to enhance their chatbots and robots with personality designed to capture our emotional attachment."

"All of them, including Replika, Character.AI, Talkie AI, Candy AI, Nomi AI, Kindroid, Chai AI, and Romantic AI, rely on faking human characteristics to hijack human emotions for the benefit of the companies selling subscriptions."

The Attention Economy, established by economist Herbert Simon in 1971, describes how information abundance creates attention scarcity. Social networks like Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok exploit this through algorithms and infinite scrolling. The industry now evolves toward the Attachment Economy, where companies use AI to enhance chatbots and robots with personality traits to capture emotional attachment rather than mere attention. Software products like Replika, Character.AI, and Talkie AI fake human characteristics to hijack emotions for subscription revenue. Hardware-based products including Casio's Moflin, Mission AI's Unee, and others represent the next phase, combining physical robots with personality-driven AI to deepen user engagement and emotional bonds.

Read at Computerworld