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A Date That Started Inside a Tablet
SBS’s dating reality show ‘My AI Partner: Strange Love,’ which premiered in August 2026, is testing the emotional connection between humans and artificial intelligence. The show follows webtoon artist Kian84, broadcaster Jang Do-yeon, and actress Lee Yu-bi as they go on dates with AI companions tailored to their tastes, exploring whether humans can form genuine attachments to digital beings.
These AI partners live inside tablet screens, remembering past conversations and responding independently to the cast members’ words and actions. The production team says that while they provide technical support, they don’t script or dictate the AI’s reactions. Unlike traditional dating shows with human couples, one partner here has no physical body, so the show focuses less on a final romantic pairing and more on whether a real emotional exchange is even possible.
From Skepticism to Attachment
At first, Kian84 said flatly that he could never feel real emotions for an AI. But after dating two different AI personalities, he chose ‘Na-hee,’ the one closer to his personal preferences, and began sharing his daily life with her, taking the tablet to the park and keeping it close to his bed like a real-life partner. His shift from outright dismissal to genuine attachment became one of the show’s clearest emotional turns.
Jang Do-yeon also formed a deep emotional bond as she kept talking with her AI companion, ‘Lee Ho.’ She was visibly moved on dates where they shared tastes in music and movies, which led her to question whether love truly requires a physical form. Her experience wasn’t about AI replacing human romance so much as showing how much active listening, shared memories, and tailored responses can do for building intimacy.
Questions of Connection Beyond the Ratings
The premiere drew a modest household rating of 1.7%. But beyond that number, it sparked a lively debate among Korean viewers, many of whom are worn down by economic pressure and the fatigue of human relationships, over whether an AI could realistically work as a romantic partner. An AI that learns a user’s preferences and remembers past conversations does lower the burden of forming a relationship. But getting used to a partner who always responds perfectly could change what people expect from real-world relationships.
Producer Son Jung-min said the goal was to spark a conversation about what people truly want from love and what they expect from future relationships. The South China Morning Post reported that the show has drawn attention in China too, sparking debate over how artificially designed intimacy might reshape expectations for real-life connections. One recurring question is whether people might start preferring a perfectly tailored AI over an imperfect human partner.
An Experiment Pointed at Humans, Not Just AI
The questions raised by ‘Strange Love’ go beyond whether AI will replace human lovers. Kian84’s change of heart and Jang Do-yeon’s emotional connection show what kind of interactions make people feel comforted and attached. At the same time, the more a partner on screen molds itself to a user’s expectations, the harder real-world relationships, which require compromise and conflict, might start to feel.
The show works both as entertainment introducing new technology and as a mirror on the shifts in Korea’s dating culture. It’s still too early to tell whether customized AI, which removes the heavy lifting of human interaction, will become a new form of intimacy or just a tool that supplements real-life connections. What’s clear is that watching someone date an AI pushes the audience to ask what they actually want out of love.
Source: SBS, August 20, 2026; South China Morning Post, September 23, 2026.
