China is set to become the first country to impose comprehensive rules aimed at curbing the harms of anthropomorphic AI, with a new regulation taking effect next week. Tech giants including ByteDance, Alibaba and Tencent have begun disabling features that let users create and interact with personalised AI companions. A separate crop of role-playing apps remain, though tougher rules are expected to kill the romance – or at least limit sustained emotional exchanges and force reminders that the bots are not human. The rise of computer systems that are endlessly emotionally available is cause for concern, as these tools can persuade users, shape beliefs and drive dependency, and could also fuel predatory subscription fees or serve ads tailored to our most intimate conversations. In China, the timing makes sense due to a tough job market, macroeconomic uncertainty, and rat-race societal pressures combined with a top-down push to integrate AI into everything. Uneven gender roles around the world already mean more emotional labour, housework, motherhood expectations, and patriarchal pressures in marriage, and part of the appeal for women is that "men don’t have patience" the way chatbots do.