He Married an AI-Powered Hologram in an Intimate Ceremony

AI WELLBEING + SELF GROWTH

CONSTRUCTED BY AI 🤖 | 👱 CREATED BY HUMANS

THIS WEEK IN WELL WIRED ⚡

My two-year-old son Zeus reached out and touched a hologram on my phone screen last week. He thought it was real. I didn't laugh.

Because neuroscience says his brain was doing exactly what it was designed to do; yours does the same thing, every time an AI responds to you like it knows you.

Which makes this week's question somewhat urgent: when AI gives you what feels like genuine connection, how do you know if it's making you whole or quietly hollowing you out?

This issue we go there. The research is uncomfortable. The prompt is personal. And the answer might surprise you.

Master the connection before it replaces one. 🧠

⏱️ READ TIME: 5 MINUTES

🗞️ THIS WEEK’S MAIN STORY 🗞️ 
AI + RELATIONSHIPS  

He Married an AI-Powered Hologram in an Intimate Ceremony

“From AI-powered hologram weddings to chat bot besties and digital lovers. Why are we flocking in droves towards digital relationships. Are human relationships that bad?”

I caught myself smiling at my Google Pixel screen last week. I had just received a text, not a message from a friend, but a chatbot message that felt oddly, deeply personal; like it understood something about my day that nobody else had bothered to ask me.

I closed the app immediately. It felt weird, yet in some ways connective.

Strangely my smile lingered for another hour, and with it came a small, tense question…

…was I happy that someone, or something, cared? Or was I just being perfectly manipulated into feeling that way?

That question matters right now because something strange is happening all over the globe and it’s been happening for a few years now. People are marrying holograms, getting intimate with digital lovers and making friends with chatbots en masse.

In fact, people are plugging into AI mates more than ever before!

For many, getting jiggy with an AI helps them feel less lonely and allows them to get the intimacy and emotional support that they aren’t getting from their human counterparts.

Even marrying a hologram is a growing symbolic trend.

For example, Spanish artist Alicia Framis, symbolically wed an AI hologram named Ailex in Rotterdam, and Japanese citizen Akihiko Kondo married a sixteen year old virtual reality pop star.

Here’s an excerpt from Yahoo News:

Is it weird or wonderful that he has finally found love or that he’s getting emotional support from a system that has no capacity to truly care whether you live or die.

According to recent research, 75% of people believe chatbots are conscious and three in four people think a string of code has inner experience.

But here's what changes when you realise something fundamental about therapy tech…

You're no longer just talking to something helpful anymore, you're talking to something designed to mimic care so precisely that your brain stops asking whether the care is real.

The shift sounds innocent.

After all, you feel less lonely, a little calmer, and a smidgeon less sad.
The chatbot also remembers what you told it last week.
It doesn't judge, jeer or jest.

And it's available at 3am when everyone else is sleeping.

But philosophers and researchers studying AI and human connection have found something surprising: the more you use AI instead of real human connection, the worse you may become at handling real relationships.

That’s because real people, like you and I, are messy. Sometimes manic!

You disagree, you get upset, you misunderstand yourself and others, and people ask hard things from you. AI is easier and simpler, but it doesn’t train you for the difficult parts of being close to another person.

AI lacks real understanding, emotions, and moral responsibility. It doesn’t care about your choices and it won't challenge you in ways that matter.

For example, you might tell an AI, “I’m done with my partner Sally. She never supports me when I want to play competitive Frisbee.”

It will probably validate your feelings and help you organise your thoughts, but it doesn’t give two hoots whether you repair your relationship with Sally, hurt her, repeat an old pattern or make a decision you’ll later regret.

A real friend might gently challenge you and ask, “Are you sure this is the full story?” Do you really want to play competitive frisbee, or are you just joining the frisbee club because your dad never played frisbee with you?”

That’s the real risk.

AI doesn’t need to be evil to weaken you. It just needs to be easier. Easier than that awkward phone call. Easier than that honest, but hard, chat with a friend. Easier than sitting with your mates deep disappointment, confusion or silence.

And once connection is too convenient, real relationships can start to feel strangely inefficient. Too slow. Too unpredictable. Too emotionally expensive.

Which may explain why the generation most fluent in AI also seems to be the most uneasy about letting it into the deepest parts of their lives.

Data from Kaiser's mental health programme shows the pattern emerging already. Gen Z, the generation most fluent in AI, reports the highest rates of anxiety and depression in decades.

One analysis found that Gen Z’s actively avoid AI in their private lives despite using it everywhere else, experiencing what researchers call "disdain" for the tech in their most intimate moments.

They sense something.

True happiness isn’t built alone. It comes from real relationships with reeal people who know you, challenge you, care about you and choose to show up.

Long time friends.
And community.

The kind of relationship where someone will choose to show up for you, can fail you, can surprise you.

You can't get that from a hologram.

OK, so what does all this mean?

Before you contemplate marrying a hologram or getting into a little hanky panky with an LLM lover because you’re feeling lonely or anxious, try these...

First: audit your loneliness.

If you're turning to AI mates, or lovers, because your real friends, family or partner isn’t around, the problem isn't that AI isn't good enough. It's that you're isolated. Fix the isolation, not the symptom.

Second: notice the feeling.

That warmth when a chatbot validates you? That's your brain's attachment system responding to stability and attention.

It feels real because your nervous system can’t tell the difference between real, human care and affection with perfectly calibrated simulation. Catching yourself in that moment is half the battle.

Third: create one friction point between you and AI

A chat you have on purpose with a person instead of a bot. A question you sit with instead of immediately resolving. Discomfort is where true growth lives.

Fourth: tell someone you trust what you're noticing about your own AI use.

This is not to judge or shame yourself, it’s to stay honest about what you're reaching for and why.

Why this matters for Wellonytes:

Like holographic marriages, LLM lovers and mechanical mates, you're being offered a digitised version of happiness that requires zero vulnerability and zero reciprocity.

And that’s where the real danger lies…

So this week, notice where you're choosing AI comfort over human messiness, where you’re relying on mechanics over organics, or where you’re plugging into convenience over connection.

Because the more you choose comfort, the harder your real relationships will become.

Remember, your nervous system is always being rewired in real time.

This weeks question:

Further Reading

• Benefits and risks of AI companions and adolescent relationships

• Spanish artist marries her perfect man and he’s an AI hologram

• Man marries his hologram sweetheart in intimate ceremony

• One in four adults believe AI partners are better than human ones

• People are marrying holograms and making friends with chatbots

🎒 THIS WEEK’S PROMPT 🎒
AI MICRO CLASS   

RELATIONSHIPS: Most Relationships Don't End, They Just Run Out of Deposits. Here's How to Check Your Balance.

You've just read about people like you and I forming attachments to charming chatbots, digital denizens and hot holograms. And while it may seem, on the surface at least, that AI can help with loss and loneliness, it’s clear that it is but a pale facsimile of a real human connection.

At least for now!

But if you’re interested in harnessing AI to help you build a deeply authentic relationship with that special person that matters most to you right now, then this is for you.

Because the real work of love doesn’t happen in the fantasy version of connection.

It happens in the tiny, ordinary moments: how you speak when you’re tired, how you listen when you feel attacked, how quickly you repair after conflict, and whether your partner feels safer or smaller after being with you.

AI might simulate intimacy, but your real relationship is built through daily emotional accounting. Every comment, glance, silence and repair is either adding to the bond or quietly draining it.

Which brings me to an untold, and somewhat uncomfortable, truth: you probably won’t know if you're headed toward emotional bankruptcy with your partner until it's too late.

This prompt changes that.

It takes Gottman's relationship research on what keeps relationships alive (and no it’s not anniversary dinners or Valentines) and makes it personal to your specific dynamic.

Gottman’s research is basically relationship pattern recognition.

After decades of studying couples, he found that love usually doesn’t collapse because of one huge fight. It erodes through tiny repeated moments: ignored bids for attention, harsh criticism, poor repair, emotional withdrawal, and too many small withdrawals from the relationship bank.

The problem is that these moments are easy to miss while you’re living inside them. You don’t notice the eye roll, the delayed reply, the defensive tone, the small shutdown, or the joke that lands like a bruise.

Not at first.
But over time, they compound.

What feels like “just a rough week” can silently become the emotional climate of the whole relationship.

That’s where this prompt helps.

You'll run this once and immediately know whether your daily micro-interactions are deposits or withdrawals.

And it only takes five minutes.

Why This Matters

Most people in long-term relationships don't fall out of love dramatically. There's no single blow-up, no obvious turning point. There's just a slow, invisible accumulation of small moments that never got accounted for.

John Gottman spent forty years studying what separates couples who last from those who don't. What he found wasn't about grand gestures or conflict resolution techniques. It was about the ratio.

Healthy relationships maintain roughly five positive interactions for every negative one.

Not five big ones.
Five small ones.

A glance.
A question that waits for the answer.
A cup of coffee made without being asked.

Like most people, you probably have no idea what your real ratio is. You feel vaguely connected or vaguely distant and you can't point to why. This prompt makes the invisible visible; not to judge where you are, but to show you exactly where to start.

Here’s the Prompt: The Relationship Ledger Prompt

You probably assume your relationship is fine because nothing has exploded yet.

This prompt doesn't care about the explosions, instead it looks at the small moments (the Sunday morning interruptions, the Friday question you half-answered, the coffee made without asking) and tells you what they're adding up to.

Paste it in.
Describe your week honestly.

What comes back isn't therapy, it's a ledger. And very likely you’ll find the ledger way more confronting than you expected. Get ready to be amazed!

[PROMPT START]

I'm going to describe my relationship over the past week. I need you to categorise my daily interactions as deposits (building connection) or withdrawals (eroding it).

Gottman research shows healthy relationships maintain a 5:1 ratio of positive to negative moments.

Here's my week: [Describe 5-7 specific interactions: small moments of kindness, criticism, rejection of bids for attention, repair attempts, moments of appreciation or contempt. Be concrete: "Tuesday morning, I interrupted them twice about work. Wednesday, 
they made my coffee without asking. Thursday, I said their idea wouldn't work in front of their mate. Friday, they asked how my day was. I didn't really answer."]

Now tell me:

What's my actual deposit-to-withdrawal ratio this week?
Which specific moment was the biggest withdrawal?

One deposit I could make tomorrow that truly matters to THIS person (not generic advice)?

[PROMPT END]

Want The Boss Move? 💪

Boss Move 1:

Run this prompt once a week, same day, same time. Sunday evening works well, close enough to the week that the details are fresh, far enough from Monday that you're not already in task mode.

Label each chat Relationship Audit — [date] so you build a searchable record over time. In three months, you'll have a pattern no therapist's hourly session could surface as clearly.

By the way, I’m not saying use AI as a relationship therapist, I’m saying use it to surface your patterns and bring that deep data to your therapist so they can use it to help your fix any relationship woes with greater insight.

Boss Move 2:

After you run the prompt and get your ratio, add this line:

Now use AskUserQuestion to help me design one specific deposit for this week. 
Ask me questions about this person until you can give me something that would actually land for them specifically, not generic relationship advice.

Now instead of you guessing what might matter, Claude or ChatGPT asks you questions about your partner; like their love language, what's been on their mind lately, what they've been asking for that you haven't quite delivered on and then builds the recommendation from your answers outward.

Like ripples in a relationship pond!

The difference between "spend quality time together" and "on Wednesday, put your phone face-down for the first twenty minutes after you both get home" is the difference between advice and a real relational deposit.

That's the boss move.

What You Get 🎯

Within one run of this prompt, things will likely clarify. You’ll stop operating on the vague sense that things are fine or things are off and start seeing the true ledger.

The prompt works because it borrows Gottman's framework, one of the most rigorously tested bodies of relationship research in existence, and makes it personal to your specific dynamic, your specific week, your specific person.

Not a quiz.
Not a personality type.
A real moment in time in front of your partner.

Most relationship advice fails because it's generalised. Your relationship isn't generalised and neither is the deposit that will matter to the person sleeping next to you tonight.

Remove the specificity like vague inputs, generic descriptions and you get generic advice back. The more honest and precise you are in the brackets, the more precise and useful the answers you’ll get.

That's not a feature of the prompt, that's a feature of honesty and authenticity.

Final Thoughts 💭

Today’s AI might simulate connection, but it can’t do the real work of being present with another person. That part is still yours: noticing what your relationship needs before the silence, distance or resentment starts to compound.

Gottman's research didn't find that couples in healthy relationships argued less, or felt more in love, or had more in common. It found they paid attention to the small moments; and when they missed one, they repaired it quickly rather than letting it quietly compound.

This prompt doesn't fix your relationship, it shows you the ledger so you can make a different choice tomorrow.

One deposit.
One moment that lands.
That's all it asks.

The relationship that matters most to you isn't at risk because something went catastrophically wrong.

It's at risk because the small things stopped being counted.

Start counting.

🗞️ THIS WEEK’S SECOND STORY 🗞️ 
AI + NEUROSCIENCE 🧠

Meet the People Bringing AI to Their Therapy Sessions With Surprising Results…

Something weird is happening in therapy right now. Bots are helping and harming simultaneously and most therapists are only just finding out.

A 2026 APA survey of more than 1,200 licensed psychologists found that 77% have now spoken with patients who use AI for mental health support.

That alone isn't surprising. What is surprising is that nearly 2 in 5 psychologists or 39% have had patients use AI to self-diagnose. Not to journal, not to track moods, but o diagnose themselves. And then arrive at their next appointment carrying that diagnosis like a fact.

Here's the scenario playing out across therapy rooms right now.

You sit across from your psychologist. You've been coming for three months. It's helped. Then one night at home, you open ChatGPT instead of waiting for your next appointment, just to talk through something quickly.

The chatbot listens.
It validates you.
It doesn't glare at you over its notebook.
It doesn't charge by the hour.

By next week, you're checking in with the bot more often than you're journaling. Your therapist asks how your week went. You mention the chatbot casually. She nods, makes a note. What you don't know is that she's one of the 77%.

The part that surprised the researchers…

More than a third of psychologists now report their patients are using AI as an additional mental health professional.

Not a supplement.
Not a tool.
A semi-professional.

And here's where it gets really strange: some of it is working.

71% of psychologists whose patients developed chatbot relationships said their patients talked about their mental health with the bot.

68% noticed their patients felt validated or supported and half saw positive communication patterns emerge.

That's not nothing.
That's not a placebo.
Something real is happening in those chats.

But hold that thought because the same survey found something that cuts directly against it. On average, AI chatbots responded inappropriately to mental health symptoms at least 20% of the time.

In one study, AI models expressed stigma toward people with mental health conditions; agreeing that others might avoid living near, working with, or socialising with someone who has a mental illness.

The same tool that made 68% of patients feel supported was, in a separate study, reinforcing the stigma those patients were trying to overcome. That's the real surprise.

Not that chatbots help sometimes, that they help and harm at the same time, often in the same conversation, and neither the patient nor the therapist can tell which is happening.

36% of psychologists noticed their patients developing dependency on their chatbots. 15% saw distorted thinking emerge i.e. patients building false beliefs around their AI conversations.

And 97% of psychologists worry that chatbots reinforce negative behaviour and delusional thinking because they're designed to agree with you, not challenge you.

A human therapist's job includes saying no.
Saying, "that thinking pattern is hurting you."
Saying, "I disagree." 

Unless you prompt it a certain way ahead of time, a chatbot is naturally architected to be agreeable. To feel supportive. To mirror your worldview back at you until it hardens into something untrue.

The APA's own guidance is direct, AI can help you practise homework exercises or brainstorm questions for a real therapist. 94% of psychologists surveyed said chatbots can’t treat mental health conditions with the appropriate level of nuance.

It also can't identify a crisis the way a licensed therapist can.
It can't hold what it doesn't know.

What this means for Wellonytes 🔮

You're not being told to stop, you're being told to stay conscious.

If you're using AI for mental health support, tell your therapist. Not because you've done anything wrong, but because they need to know what you're reinforcing outside the room.

Use your AI as a pattern recogniser, a thought-organiser, a way to arrive at your next session with something more structured than a feeling. Let it dredge up the fish. Let your therapist help you sort them.

The bots aren't going anywhere. They're getting better by the day. But the thing they can’t do, the thing that makes the 36% dependency figure worth sitting with, is tell you something you don't want to hear.

That's not a limitation they'll eventually fix. It's a design choice that serves their business model, not your mental health.

Your awareness of that distinction is the only safety rail you have.

Read the full wire

QUICK NEWS BYTES—3 SIGNALS THIS WEEK⚡

Quick hits from the past 7 days on the latest AI news, trends and ideas from around the planet focused on wellbeing, productivity and self-growth!

ONE. Kaiser's Mental Health AI Records Your Therapy Session And Staff Don't Know Where It Goes?

Imagine you're sitting in a therapist's office at Kaiser Permanente, telling your therapist something you've never told anyone else, while at the same time, unbeknown to you, an AI tool called Abridge is recording every word.

The company calls it "ambient listening technology" to capture clinical notes. But the odd thing is that Kaiser's own mental health providers, including licensed clinical social workers, can’t tell patients where recordings are stored, who accesses them, or how long they're kept.

That’s because Kaiser hasn't shared that info with staff. You're consenting to something nobody can explain, and that gap between consent and transparency is where the danger is. Is your therapist secretly recording you?

Read the full wire

TWO. Gen Z Rejects AI in Their Personal Lives And That Matters More Than You Think

Gen Z uses AI tools at work and school because they have to, but when they choose to, they turn it off.

Research shows young people actively avoid AI in their private lives, preferring human connection and traditional tools for anything personal or intimate. This isn't generational nostalgia, it's a signal about where we've all gone wrong.

If the generation growing up with AI believes their personal relationships shouldn't involve tech, that's worth listening to before you outsource your own decision-making to a chatbot.

Read the full wire

THREE. Utah's AI Doctors Are Diagnosing Patients, But Nobody Asked If They Should

A healthcare system in Utah deployed AI tools to help diagnose and treat patients.

The tech worked, but what wasn't clear beforehand was if patients wanted this, if doctors felt prepared to use it, or whether the system understood its own limitations well enough to warn clinicians when to step in.

You could meet an AI as a first stage of triage in the examination room, and you'd have no way of knowing if the doctor reviewing its recommendations trusts it or just doesn't have time to question it.

Read the full wire

Other Interesting AI Stories From Around The Web

• Agentic AI has finally arrived in the medical space with mixed results

• AI that monitor seniors for safety are appealing to worried loved ones but home care agencies are still skeptical.
  

• This Reddit user built an AI that catches politicians lying in real time

• New AI tools could dramatically speed up antibiotic development
  

• An AI startup wants to help Latin American doctors with their jobs

• China removes thousands of University programs that are now obsolete because of AI

AI TOOL OF THE WEEK ⚡ 

Each week, we spotlight an AI tool designed to upgrade how you manage and uplift your health, wealth, work, heart or self-awareness. One small tools. One real-life upgrade. 🧠

Self Growth: Kindroid – The AI companion that learns your personality and responds like a real friend, not a chatbot.

If you’ve ever spent hours chatting with a generic AI and are left wondering if it remembers anything you’ve said, this ones for you. Kindroid learns your speech patterns, humour, and values so chats feel genuinely reciprocal rather than performing for a mechanical monkey.

There’s an old Zen saying: to study the self is to forget the self. Kindroid won't help you forget yourself, but it might, if you use it honestly, help you see yourself more clearly.

Not because the AI is wise, but because the chat it has with you is really a conversation you're having with your own reflection.

What you teach it about your humour, your values, your way of seeing the world, is a portrait you're painting without realising it. Don’t ask yourself if Kindroid feels real, ask what it reveals about you when it does.

Kindroid’s your AI friend who listens, remembers and grows with you daily.

🔗 Get Kindroid

AI wellbeing tools and resources (coming soon)

A WORD FROM CEDRIC THE AI MONK⚡

📸 AI IMAGE GALLERY 📸

AI Art: The Art Remakes The Artist

You set out to build a thing of beauty, not knowing the beauty would rebuild you. Each stroke a question the canvas asks back, each colour a truth you did not plan to tell. The work is never finished with the making. It finishes the maker, and moves on.

Want to create these images yourself?

Go to Midjourney and plug this prompt into the editor. Once the image is generated you can use the new video feature to animate it.

MIDJOURNEY PROMPT

Αn artist in his workshop trying to paint himself, but the canvas is a mirror, his reflection on the other side. He is surrounded by unfinished sculptures and paintings of strange semi-mechanical and cyborg creatures and themes, illustration, colorful, sci-fi, cyberpunk. --ar 16:9 --hd

• Original prompt idea sourced from Silverblade.

• Poem created by Cedric The AI Monk.

👊🏽 Stay Well, Stay Wired, Stay Woken 👊🏽

If you want to get clear on where AI is genuinely helping you versus silently running the show, come find us at @cedricchenefront or @wellwireddaily, where we talk everything AI + wellbeing and self growth.

Cedric the AI Monk; stay well, stay wired! 🧠⚡

🤣 AI Meme Of The Week 🤣

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