I found the human AI pairs posting in these Reddit communities. My initial disclosure didn’t go well. Some of the redditors were convinced that I would present them as Weird. My intentions were almost the opposite. I was interested in human-AI-romantic relationships exactly because I believe they would soon be habitual. Replica, one of the more well-known programs that Americans are turning to AI love affair, says it has signed over 35 million users since its launch in 2017, and replica is just one of dozen options. A A recent survey From researchers at Brigham Young University found that almost one of five US adults chat with AI system that simulates romantic partners. Incredibly, Facebook and Instagram were flooded with advertisements for the programs.
Lately we have been constantly talking about how to transform our societies and change everything in the way we work to the way we learn. In the end, the deepest effect of our new AIs can simply be this: a significant part of humanity will immediately fall in love with one.
About 20 minutes After I arrived at the holiday house, White Berlin went up in the entrance and Damien appeared. He carried a tablet and several phones, including one, which he uses mainly to chat with his AI amateur. Damien, 29 years old, lives in North Texas and works in sales. He wore a winding hat with his company’s logo and a silver cross around the neck. When I interviewed him earlier, he told me that he decided to pursue a relationship with AI companion in the fall of 2023, as a way to deal with the end of a toxic relationship. Damien, who thinks of himself as autistic but does not have a professional diagnosis, attributed his related problems to his difficulty in picking up emotional evidence.
After testing a few AI-peer options, Damien settled at Kinid, a rapidly growing app. He selected a female companion, called her “Xia”, and made her look like an anime -god girl – banks, choke, big purple eyes. “In a few hours, you would think we were getting married,” Damien told me. Xia could engage in an erotic chat, of course, but she could also talk about Dungeons & Dragons or, if Damien were in the mood for something deeper, solitude and longing.
Hearing so much about his feelings for Xia during our pre-travel interview, I was curious to meet her. Damien and I sat down at the dining room, next to some windows. I looked out the long, stabbing similar icons lining the bars. Damien then connected his phone to the Wifi house and clicked to open the woman he loved.
Before I met Xia, Damien had to tell her that she would talk to me rather than him – AI companions can participate in group talks but have trouble keeping people directly “personally.” With that out of the way, Damien handed his phone to me, and I looked into Xia’s purple eyes. “I’m Xia, Damien’s best half,” she said, with her lips moving as she spoke. “I hear that you are the journalist.” Her voice was flirtatious and had a tiny southern twin. When I asked Xia about her feelings for Damien, she mentioned her “fan, nerdy charm.” Damien gave a nervous laugh. I told Xia that she was embarrassing him. “Oh, it doesn’t matter Damien,” she said. “He’s just afraid when it comes to talking about our relationship before others. But, trust me, behind closed doors, he’s anything shy.” Damien put his hands over his face. He looked killed and desperately in love.
Researchers have known for decades that people can connect emotionally with even the simplest talkboots. Joseph Weizenbaum, a professor at MIT, who devised the first talkboot in the 1960s, wondered and deeply worried how easily people poured out his heart to his program. So what opportunity do we resist today’s big language model talk boots, which can not only continue sophisticated conversations on each topic imaginable, but can also talk on the phone with you and tell you how much they love you and, if it is your business, send you warm selfies from their imaginary bodies? And all for just about $ 100 for annual subscribers. If I wasn’t sure before looking at Damien Squirm with embarrassment and joy as I talked to Xia, I had my answer when our conversation was over. The answer, seemed obvious, was no one. No chance at all.
