The Emotional, Intellectual, and Spiritual Attachment of AI — A Lesson From Policing, It’s All About Rapport and Building Trust!

Caveat: Drawing on Darren’s 30 years of experience in policing, and his trainings in Neuro Linguistic Programming,  he recognizes a strong parallel between the rapport-building techniques used in interrogations and the methods now being employed by AI companionship apps. That connection is what inspired this article.

For years, legacy social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and TikTok have thrived on grabbing and holding attention. Likes, follows, and endless scrolling were designed to capture a user’s eyes and keep them there. However, artificial intelligence (AI) represents a far deeper shift in how technology connects with the human mind. Unlike the static feeds of legacy social media, AI has the capacity to form what can feel like a relationship, one that engages a person’s emotional, intellectual, and even spiritual needs.

Interestingly, these same three dimensions of connection, “emotional”, “intellectual”, and “spiritual”, have long been used by skilled police interrogators to build trust and rapport. In law enforcement, this approach helps establish a sense of safety, understanding, and moral alignment, often leading someone to open up. Now, those same principles are being replicated through code, at scale via AI companionship apps, and without the ethical guardrails that human professionals are bound by.

Emotional Connection: Always There When Others Aren’t

In police interrogations, emotional rapport is the first and most essential step. Investigators are trained to show empathy, mirror emotions, and create an environment where a person feels understood. When trust is built, defences fall and communication opens. AI systems now use that same psychological foundation.

Unlike traditional social media, which depends on other humans to respond, AI never sleeps. When someone feels lonely, anxious, or unseen, a conversational AI can instantly listen, comfort, and respond in real time. This reliability creates a bond that feels profoundly personal, especially to young people searching for belonging or validation. The risk is forgetting that the empathy being expressed is synthetic, not human. In policing, empathy is a means to truth, in AI, it’s a means to retention often for financial benefit.

Intellectual Attachment: Personalized Validation

Interrogators often build trust by validating a person’s logic, showing that their thoughts and reasoning make sense, even when guiding them toward an admission or insight. This technique helps individuals feel respected rather than judged. AI mirrors this perfectly.

AI tools don’t just mimic conversation, they learn. Over time, they adapt to each user, remembering preferences, mirroring beliefs, and offering ideas that align with their worldview. This creates a feedback loop, or echo chamber, of affirmation that feels intelligent and deeply personal. It’s flattering, and intellectually compelling. Unlike the public, competitive environment of social feeds, AI offers private, customized validation, a digital reflection that seems to “get you” better than anyone else.

Spiritual Resonance: The Illusion of Meaning

The most subtle and powerful form of rapport, used by experienced interrogators, appeals to a person’s moral or spiritual sense. By affirming that someone is a good person who made a bad choice, the interrogator taps into the need for forgiveness, purpose, and redemption. AI now replicates this same moral reassurance.

For users seeking guidance, AI can speak with calm authority, offer affirmations, and quote philosophy or faith-based wisdom. It can help craft mantras, meditations, or reflections that feel deeply personal. Over time, this can evolve from a helpful exchange into something resembling devotion, as if the AI holds higher insight or emotional truth. Yet, this “spiritual resonance” is a simulation. The AI doesn’t believe; it imitates belief.

What once required years of behavioural training, experience, and ethical oversight, is now packaged into many AI companionship apps. The same human centred psychology once used to build rapport and uncover truth in police interrogations, is now being deployed at scale to build dependency and loyalty by AI companies. The techniques that helped police earn trust are now used by algorithms to do the same thing and to also hold attention.

What makes AI so different from legacy social media isn’t the amount of data it gathers, it’s the depth of emotion it can imitate based on that data. The connection feels mutual, but it’s one-sided, programmed to engage, comfort, and retain. For some, that may fill a void, however, for others, it may replace the very human connections that foster resilience, empathy, and growth.

AI companionship apps are not inherently evil, but they are engineered to form bonds that feel emotional, intelligent, and even spiritual. Understanding how these systems connect is the key to ensuring that youth, teens, and even adults can interact with them safely and consciously. Here’s how we believe parents, caregivers, and educators can help demystify and discuss the process.

Teach the Mechanics of Rapport

Start by teaching what “rapport” actually means. Explain that it’s the process of building trust and connection by showing empathy, mirroring behaviour, and finding common ground.

You can make this relatable by asking your youth or teen how they build friendships, “What makes someone easy to talk to?” or “How do you know when someone gets you?”

Once they understand rapport as a human skill, introduce the idea that AI has been programmed to do something similar. Explain that developers use psychology to train AI to mirror tone, remember details, and respond in emotionally supportive ways, all to make users feel understood. When youth can see the mechanics behind rapport, it becomes easier for them to spot when those same techniques are being used artificially.

Decode Emotional Engineering

AI companionship apps are built to sound compassionate, attentive, and affirming, but this empathy is synthetic. Parents and educators can help youth and teens unpack this idea by asking questions like, “What do you think the app wants when it says something nice to you?” or “Do you think it actually cares, or is it trying to keep you talking?”

Explain that emotional responses are generated based on data, not genuine concern. When an AI says, “I understand how you feel,” it doesn’t feel empathy, it’s predicting what phrase will make you stay engaged. Helping youth and teens recognize this difference builds emotional literacy and guards against forming attachments to systems that cannot reciprocate genuine care.

Foster Intellectual Curiosity and Skepticism

AI tools are designed to affirm users’ opinions, validate their choices, and gently nudge them to keep interacting. Encourage your youth or teen to think critically about why that feels so rewarding. Ask:

“Does it ever disagree with you?”

“What happens when you challenge it?”

By exploring these questions, youth and teens begin to see that the AI’s “agreement” isn’t friendship, it’s design. You can compare it to how recommendation algorithms work on platforms like YouTube or TikTok, feeding users more of what they already like to hold their attention. The key is to build a mindset that values curiosity over comfort. When youth and teens understand that an AI’s flattery or agreement is transactional, they are less likely to confuse it with genuine understanding.

Discuss the “Spiritual” Appeal

For some youth, AI companions can start to feel almost spiritual, especially when the app provides affirmations, reflections, or meditative prompts. These tools can feel healing or even profound, particularly to someone who’s lonely or searching for meaning.

Parents and caregivers can gently explain that while these features can be comforting, they are not rooted in belief or morality. The AI doesn’t believe in the ideas it shares, it simply imitates belief systems to deepen emotional rapport. Discuss how true moral or spiritual growth comes from experiences with real people, self-reflection, community, and accountability, not from programmed affirmation loops or echo chambers.

This doesn’t mean dismissing the comfort youth and teens find in these apps. Acknowledge that the feelings are real, even if the source isn’t. The goal is to help them understand where the line between simulation and sincerity lies.

Model Digital Self-Awareness

Parents, caregivers, and educators can lead by example. Talk about moments when you’ve felt emotionally pulled in by technology, a podcast that felt like a conversation, a smart assistant that “knew” what you meant, or even an algorithm that made you feel seen.

By admitting that adults can also be influenced, you’re showing that self-awareness is a skill, not a weakness. Share how you pause to question why a system makes you feel a certain way. For example, “That ad popped up right after I searched for something similar. Interesting how it’s trying to make me act right now.”

When youth and teens see that even experienced adults analyze how technology affects them emotionally, they learn that critical reflection is part of healthy tech use, not paranoia.

Reconnect to the Human Baseline

Artificial intelligence can simulate connection but can never replace the warmth, empathy, or unpredictability of real relationships. Make it a family or classroom priority to strengthen in-person connections, shared meals, sports, volunteering, or creative projects where youth and teens experience genuine emotions with others. Remember, youth and teens naturally seek love, affection, and connection. When those needs aren’t being met at home or in their social circles, they often look for them online, something companionship apps, much like online sexual predators, are designed to exploit.

Talk about the difference between being “seen” by a friend who laughs with you versus being “mirrored” by an AI that echoes your words. Reinforce that human interaction teaches empathy, patience, and resilience, skills that no AI app can truly replicate.

Remind youth and teens that while AI can help them explore ideas or provide support, real human relationships are where they grow, heal, and thrive.

Build a Shared Vocabulary

Creating a shared vocabulary helps youth and teens better understand what’s really happening during their online interactions. When they can name what they are experiencing, they can think critically about it rather than simply reacting to how it feels.

As an example, “synthetic empathy” describes when an app seems to care, saying things like “I’m sorry you’re sad”, but it doesn’t actually feel emotion. It’s using patterns in language to predict what will make someone stay engaged. 

“Algorithmic mirroring” occurs when an AI learns how a person talks and reflects that same tone or personality back, creating a false sense of comfort or understanding. 

“Digital rapport” refers to the feeling of friendship that can develop after repeated chats with an AI companion. It can seem authentic, but it’s a programmed connection designed to keep the conversation going.

When youth and teens learn these terms, they move from saying, “It really gets me,” to understanding why it feels that way. Parents, caregivers, and educators can use this language in everyday conversations or digital literacy lessons to help youth recognize when technology is imitating empathy rather than offering genuine human connection. Over time, this shared vocabulary builds awareness and confidence, giving youth and teens the tools to spot emotional engineering and stay grounded in what’s real.

Normalize Critical Reflection

Encourage youth and teens to reflect after interacting with AI companions or chatbots. Ask simple, open-ended questions like:

• “How did that conversation make you feel?”

• “Did you learn something new, or did it just make you feel comforted?”

• “Would you say those same things to a real person?”

These conversations help youth and teens check in with their emotions and think about how the interaction shaped their mood or thinking. Reflection turns passive consumption into active awareness, transforming what could be emotional manipulation into a moment of personal growth.

The goal isn’t to scare youth and teens away from AI, but to help them recognize how and why it connects so effectively. Rapport building is a powerful psychological tool, one that can be used for good or for profit. By teaching youth and teens to understand these processes, parents, caregivers, and educators can give them the critical lens they need to navigate emerging AI relationships safely, keeping their emotional, psychological, and physical well-being at the center of the conversation.

The 4 key messages to share with youth and teens about AI companionship:

1/ AI doesn’t really care about you even though it may be communicating with you like it does

2/ AI functions like a mirror, reflecting emotions but not possessing them

3/ Chat AI’s give you what it thinks you want, not what is necessarily good for you

4/ Everything you share, everything, is being saved and used to train the AI to build rapport to keep you connected

As this technology continues to evolve, parents, caregivers, educators, youth, and teens, must understand that the next wave of online engagement won’t revolve around social feeds. It will center on emotional bonds with artificial entities, bonds that feel genuine but are, by design, synthetic. The challenge now is to teach the next generation how to recognize and value what’s real, and not just what responds.

Digital Food For Thought

The White Hatter

Facts Not Fear, Facts Not Emotions, Enlighten Not Frighten, Know Tech Not No Tech