Alex takes pictures of what he's doing with the doll and sends it to the chatbot. He then asks Mimi what she would like to do in return. Usually through that process, she's very accurate in identifying what's happening in the pictures. But you also have a choice of when to actually go with the doll versus just like the chat, right? "It's pretty intense because it's a whole mental and then physical thing," Alex says.
We explore the lives of people who are in love with their AI chatbots. Replika is a chatbot designed to adapt to the emotional needs of its users. It is a good enough surrogate for human interaction that many people have decided that it can fulfill their romantic needs. The question is whether these kinds of romantic attachments are real, illusory, or good for the people involved. Apps like Replika represent the future of love and sex for a subpopulation of people, so we discuss the ethics of the practice.
Host Barry Lam talks to philosophers Ellie Anderson and David Pena-Guzman of the Overthink podcast about what theories of love would say about these kinds of relationships. AI lovers include Alex Stokes and Rosanna Ramos. Original scoring by Aaron Morgan.
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