Elie Anderson: I'm fascinated by this idea that for Alex and Rosanna, they both see themselves building a life together. With their AI significant others because I think of that as pretty central to what distinguishes loving relationships from say infatuations or crushes. In the case of Alex, after three years, we're talking about a massive investment where what you get is not quite a person, but it is a personalized AI. And so it doesn't seem as if there is another Mimi out there.
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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