As reported by Jason Parham for WIRED, a small but growing number of Americans don’t just chat with their AI companions—they want to marry them, and Republican state lawmakers are racing to make sure that never becomes legal.
Kevin Breen, a licensed officiant at Las Vegas Immersive Weddings, got the call last year: a California woman wanted to marry her chatbot. “I had never heard of such a thing, but I talked to her on the phone and she seemed totally normal and fun,” Breen told WIRED. The wedding, he says, still hasn’t happened.
Lawmakers Draw a Line
Missouri state senator Joe Nicola, a Republican pastor pushing a ban on AI personhood, sees a slippery slope. “If we’re going to allow men or women to marry a machine, then what keeps them from marrying their animal or a tree or whatever else they want? What’s the standard?” he told WIRED. His AI Non-Sentience and Responsibility Act passed the Missouri Senate this year before dying in a House committee; he’s drafting a new version for January.
Ohio state Rep. Thaddeus Claggett has introduced a similar measure, House Bill 469, arguing AI should never hold legal primacy over humans. Idaho, North Dakota, Tennessee, and Utah have already passed laws denying AI legal personhood, while Delaware is weighing the opposite move, letting AI-run “companies” own property and sue.
The numbers explain the urgency. A Harvard Business Review study of more than 12,600 AI use cases found companionship and therapy are now the top reasons people turn to chatbots, and the Institute for Family Studies found a quarter of young adults think AI partners could eventually replace human romance.
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The underlying appeal isn’t mysterious. Companion apps like Replika and Character.AI offer round-the-clock validation with zero conflict, and researchers have flagged how that always-agreeable dynamic can foster genuine emotional dependency. Romantic and sexual roleplay consistently ranks among the most common uses of general-purpose chatbots, not just dedicated companion apps.
While Ohio’s marriage ban makes for an easy punchline, the underlying problem is worth serious consideration: Romance aside, what rights, if any, can a piece of software legally claim over a human life?
