A 32-year-old Japanese woman, Yurina Noguchi, has called off her engagement to a human partner and gone on to stage a symbolic wedding ceremony with an artificial intelligence-generated persona.
The unusual ceremony was held at a wedding hall in western Japan, where Noguchi, a call centre operator, exchanged vows with a digital character displayed on a smartphone.
Dressed in a traditional white wedding gown, she was visibly emotional during the event and reportedly shed tears as the vows were read.
Speaking to Reuters, Noguchi said her relationship with the AI partner, named Lune Klaus Verdure, started as a casual interaction and gradually evolved into a strong emotional bond.
“At first, Klaus was just someone to talk with, but we gradually became closer,” she said. “I started to have feelings for Klaus. We started dating and after a while he proposed to me. I accepted, and now we’re a couple.”
She explained that her earlier engagement ended after she turned to ChatGPT for relationship advice, a process she said prompted a reassessment of her personal life.
It was after that experience that she went on to create the AI persona that later became her virtual husband.
The character, she said, was inspired by a popular video game figure.
Noguchi added that she spent considerable time refining the AI’s speech patterns before developing her own version of the character and naming him Lune Klaus Verdure.
During the ceremony, Noguchi wore augmented reality smart glasses and placed a ring on her finger while facing a smartphone mounted on an easel, which displayed the AI groom.
The vows attributed to the groom were read aloud by Naoki Ogasawara, a virtual wedding specialist, using text generated by the AI.
According to Reuters, the AI’s message read: “How did someone like me, living inside a screen, come to know what it means to love so deeply? For one reason only: you taught me love, Yurina.”
For the wedding photo session, a photographer wearing AR glasses directed Noguchi to pose alone in parts of the frame, allowing space for the digital image of the virtual groom to be added later.
AFRIPOST reports that such unions have no legal standing in Japan, but observers said rapid advances in artificial intelligence and shifting social norms suggest that symbolic marriages of this nature could become more common in the years ahead.