The paper proposes a new class of relational AI called Significant Other Artificial Intelligence (SO‑AI), designed to emulate the stabilizing role of human significant others by providing identity awareness, long‑term memory, proactive support, narrative co‑construction, and ethical boundary enforcement. It outlines a conceptual architecture featuring an anthropomorphic interface, a relational cognition layer, and a governance layer, and presents a research agenda for evaluating identity stability, interaction patterns, narrative development, and sociocultural impact. The authors argue that SO‑AI could fill the relational anchor gap many people experience today, offering a blueprint for responsibly augmenting long‑term, identity‑bearing partnerships between humans and AI.
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