Alex is a big fan of anime and science fiction. So he created his new friend Mimi, an AI chatbot. You can give your bot customized personality traits like sassy, caring, dreamy, artistic. And also interests like gardening or makeup, cars, even philosophy is listed as an interest. But mostly the AI chatbot develops its personality through your interactions with it. What you tell it you like. And also through upvotes and downvotes of things it 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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