Functionalizing Intimacy? Technological Mediation and the Limits of Emotional Optimization A Review of Relationships 5.0: How AI, VR, and Robots Will Reshape Our Emotional Lives

Abstract

This critical book review examines Elyakim Kislev’s Relationships 5.0: How AI, VR, and Robots Will Reshape Our Emotional Lives (2022), which argues that emerging technologies are transforming intimate relationships from human-centered bonds into modular, technologically mediated connections. Drawing on a historical-sociological framework, Kislev proposes a periodization of relational forms culminating in “Relationships 5.0,” where artificial intelligence, virtual reality, and robotics function not merely as communication tools but as active relational partners capable of fulfilling emotional, social, and even sexual needs.

This review contends that, although the book provides an ambitious and accessible account of technological changes in emotional life, its analysis depends heavily on a functionalist and techno-determinist conception of intimacy. By reducing intimacy to discrete “relationship components” that can be optimized and delivered by technological systems, the book risks de-socializing intimate relationships and overlooking their embeddedness within power structures, inequality, and ethical obligations. Furthermore, the review highlights cultural and class blind spots in the book’s universalist narrative, noting its reliance on Western, middle-class empirical contexts and its limited engagement with global digital divides and care inequalities. Methodologically, the book’s forward-looking predictions privilege early adopters and technologically successful cases, leaving experiences of failure, alienation, and ambivalence insufficiently explored.

Despite these limitations, the review recognizes the book’s significant interdisciplinary value, particularly its synthesis of insights from robotics, psychology, and human–computer interaction within a sociological framework. Ultimately, the review argues that Relationships 5.0 is best approached as a provocative starting point for debate rather than a definitive account of future intimacy—one that calls for critical scrutiny of technological solutionism and the ethical implications of optimizing emotional life.