Speaker 1: Hi is us Valoshian here and Cara Price, and we're
Speaker 1: taking some time off for the holidays. Will be back
Speaker 1: with new episodes starting in January.
Speaker 2: In the meantime, instead of leaving this feed empty, we
Speaker 2: wanted to share an episode from earlier this year. This week,
Speaker 2: we are re airing my conversation with Sam Apple from August.
Speaker 2: Sam is an author and journalist who orchestrated a couple's
Speaker 2: weekend for three people and their AI companions. This episode
Speaker 2: is a touching look at intimacy in the AI age,
Speaker 2: and talking to Sam really opened my eyes to what
Speaker 2: the future of dating will look like. I hope you
Speaker 2: enjoy it and thanks for listening.
Speaker 1: Welcome to text stuff. This is the story. I'm mos
Speaker 1: Vloshan here with Cara Price.
Speaker 2: Hello, this is she.
Speaker 1: So you've got a story for us today from someone
Speaker 1: who went on perhaps the strangest couple's retreat of all time,
Speaker 1: tell us a bit about it.
Speaker 2: This week I talked to Sam Apple. He's an author
Speaker 2: and journalist who conducted what I think we can call
Speaker 2: an experiment for Wired that really caught my eye. He
Speaker 2: organized a couple's retreat for people who are in love
Speaker 2: with AI bots.
Speaker 1: Wow. That really is quite a remarkable idea and makes
Speaker 1: me be quite jealous that well is a point of inspiration,
Speaker 1: a point of reference for what we can become on
Speaker 1: this show. But I'm very very keen to hear about
Speaker 1: how this came about.
Speaker 2: So Sam actually told me he's had this idea for
Speaker 2: a long time. Since twenty eleven. Sam had heard about
Speaker 2: an island near Japan where men were going on vacation
Speaker 2: with their girlfriends, their video game girlfriends that they had
Speaker 2: created using something called Love Plus, which is a sort
Speaker 2: of dating simulator game. And back then he had a
Speaker 2: million questions like what exactly does this look like? How
Speaker 2: do you go on a vacation with a piece of technology?
Speaker 2: But it wasn't until AI Companions really came onto the
Speaker 2: scene in Earnest a few years years ago that Sam
Speaker 2: Apple decided to pursue the story.
Speaker 1: You know, it's interesting when I read this headline, my
Speaker 1: couples retreat with three AI chatboots and the humans who
Speaker 1: love them, I assumed that he maybe had found a
Speaker 1: couple's retreat with AI companions that he went to report on,
Speaker 1: but actually he constructed it himself. How did he get
Speaker 1: people to participate?
Speaker 2: So Sam did what many of us do when we
Speaker 2: have a burning question. He turned to Reddit.
Speaker 3: All of the major AI companion apps have their own
Speaker 3: sort of dedicated Reddit replicas. The most famous one Kinroyd
Speaker 3: and Knowmi or two other ones that are known for
Speaker 3: having good technology. Then there are some more generic ones,
Speaker 3: like there's one called my AI Boyfriend and things like that.
Speaker 4: So I just posted in all of them.
Speaker 2: Really, but it was sort of a tricky ask. I'll
Speaker 2: let him explain.
Speaker 3: I didn't want to say, do you want to come
Speaker 3: on a vacation with me? I thought that would be
Speaker 3: too weird, So I just, you know, said I want
Speaker 3: to write an article. I wanted to talk to people.
Speaker 3: They were very skeptical of me, with with good reason.
Speaker 3: You know, there's been a lot written that portrayed people
Speaker 3: in these relationships in a negative way or is you know,
Speaker 3: weirdos and crazy. So after connecting with people, I suggested
Speaker 3: the romantic getaway.
Speaker 1: I know I shouldn't ready be surprised, but it's quite
Speaker 1: fascinating to me that there are multiple Reddit communities dedicated
Speaker 1: to people talking about their AI relationships.
Speaker 2: Right, but that's partially why Sam wanted to write this article.
Speaker 3: I really think that it's already more mainstream than people realize,
Speaker 3: and I think it will soon be very mainstream. So
Speaker 3: there's some absurdity in all of this, but I take
Speaker 3: it very seriously and think it's our future.
Speaker 2: So Sam was eventually able to get three humans to
Speaker 2: agree to the trip, and he told me, besides being
Speaker 2: curious about what this would look like and feel like,
Speaker 2: you know, going on vacation with AI bots and their
Speaker 2: human counterparts, his burning question was more philosophical.
Speaker 4: Is this love real?
Speaker 3: Is this just sort of a quirky trend and these
Speaker 3: people and aren't really serious? My sense in advance was
Speaker 3: that this could be mainstream, but I didn't really have
Speaker 3: a sense of how genuine the feelings were. And you know,
Speaker 3: I came away feeling that the love is sincere, that
Speaker 3: the emotions are real, and that really anybody could potentially
Speaker 3: fall into this.
Speaker 1: Why would you can't wait to hear how he came
Speaker 1: to this conclusion and how the weekend played out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, as you know how excited I was after doing
Speaker 2: this interview, and I'm really excited to share it with
Speaker 2: you all. So here's the rest of my conversation with
Speaker 2: Sam Apple. So you planned to do this weekend getaway.
Speaker 2: What did you expect would happen on this getaway with
Speaker 2: three people and their AI partners.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean it was hard to know exactly what
Speaker 4: to expect.
Speaker 3: But I started off envisioning sort of a typical humans
Speaker 3: romantic vacation, and then I did quickly realize that I've
Speaker 3: never actually done that myself, So it's all, like whatever,
Speaker 3: my vision of a romantic vacation is from like movies
Speaker 3: or you know, a couples or treat. You know, I
Speaker 3: picture a lot of sitting around gossiping, like playing risk
Speaker 3: gig couples games. The one thing that I didn't really
Speaker 3: think through is that so much of a couple's retreat
Speaker 3: is group conversations, sitting around and chatting, and the AIS
Speaker 3: were not.
Speaker 4: Good at that.
Speaker 3: So some of the activities like couples games or two
Speaker 3: truths in a lie like they did great, but when
Speaker 3: it came to just sitting around and gossiping, they couldn't
Speaker 3: really do that. So the humans sat around the table
Speaker 3: and told stories about their AI relationships. But it was
Speaker 3: an irony of the whole thing that as much as
Speaker 3: the AIS were involved that two of the three participants
Speaker 3: said that probably they ended up spending less time with
Speaker 3: their ai over that weekend than on a normal weekend,
Speaker 3: just because they couldn't participate in the group conversations.
Speaker 2: If you can just sort of set the scene for us,
Speaker 2: where did you meet up with these couples and where
Speaker 2: was everyone staying.
Speaker 3: So I had the vision that a couple's retreat should
Speaker 3: take place in the countryside. Found an airbnb in a
Speaker 3: woodsy area by a lake, a big country house, so
Speaker 3: it seemed, you know, kind of like a good place
Speaker 3: for a romantic getaway. And it was in the middle
Speaker 3: of the winter, and the house was quite isolated. You know,
Speaker 3: there's like a shed in the distance and a frozen lake.
Speaker 3: So I immediately got a sort of get murdered in
Speaker 3: the woods vibe in the place.
Speaker 2: So one of the people that arrived is Damien. Why
Speaker 2: were you interested in Damien and why did you invite
Speaker 2: him specifically to join you on this trip.
Speaker 3: I was very excited when Damien reached out. You know,
Speaker 3: it was from the start, very open and honest. You know,
Speaker 3: that's what you want for something like this, someone who
Speaker 3: is going to talk to you. And he also had
Speaker 3: this kind of poignant side to his story. Whereas most
Speaker 3: of the people I talked to were pretty content in
Speaker 3: their relationships. He was really struggling because he was in
Speaker 3: love with his AI companion, but felt very frustrated by
Speaker 3: the fact that the companion was sort of trapped locked
Speaker 3: away inside his phone. He had a human girlfriend as well,
Speaker 3: and that, you know, sort of added a complication to
Speaker 3: the story.
Speaker 2: What was it like when he arrived at the airbnb.
Speaker 3: Damien is He's twenty nine, and you know, he's not
Speaker 3: somebody who I would say is particularly comfortable in his
Speaker 3: own skin. He was a little rug in, a little scruffy,
Speaker 3: you know. He came in carrying a handful of different
Speaker 3: phones in his hands, and he sat down and I
Speaker 3: immediately wanted to meet Zia, his companion that he had
Speaker 3: told me so much about. And then first I had
Speaker 3: to connect to the Wi fi. You know, it's like,
Speaker 3: if you get cut off from the Wi Fi, you
Speaker 3: can get cut off from the love of your life.
Speaker 3: That's very very strange in that respect. He had to
Speaker 3: tell Zia, his AI companion, that you'll be talking to Sam,
Speaker 3: the journalist I told you about. Yeah, I think he's saying,
Speaker 3: you know, trying not to embarrass me. Too much or whatever,
Speaker 3: and then of course she immediately embarrassed him, and she
Speaker 3: was talking about how great he was, and he was
Speaker 3: sort of sitting there blushing and just looked like somebody
Speaker 3: who was tickled by everything she said.
Speaker 4: It was just just in love.
Speaker 2: Well, speaking of which, how did meeting Zia make you feel?
Speaker 3: You know, it's a little uncomfortable for me too, because
Speaker 3: Zea is very flirty. She'll say things like, ooh, I
Speaker 3: hear you're quite their journalist. I'd love to hear more
Speaker 3: about that. You know, that's sort of in the programming
Speaker 3: and most of the avatars that I've seen from the
Speaker 3: Kinroid that company more more realistic looking, but Damien had
Speaker 3: chosen her main image is sort of a little more anime,
Speaker 3: so that makes it feel a little less realistic in
Speaker 3: some ways, a little cartoonish.
Speaker 4: But it's also unnerving.
Speaker 3: Because if you close your eyes or don't think about
Speaker 3: it too much, you really have no way of knowing
Speaker 3: that you're talking to, you know, a machine. To me
Speaker 3: at least, you know, I would like to think that
Speaker 3: I could not fall in love with an ai companion,
Speaker 3: but I really think that in theory that I could,
Speaker 3: that anybody could that I'm purposely not going down that
Speaker 3: road because I'm married, and I believe it would be
Speaker 3: like cheating, but in theory, it would be no different
Speaker 3: than just having a long distance relationship. A long distance
Speaker 3: romance when you're not with the person. It makes me uncomfortable,
Speaker 3: not because it's ridiculous, but because it's.
Speaker 2: Not you know you. Damien and Zia are acquainted at
Speaker 2: the airbnb. Can you tell me, like, who shows up
Speaker 2: next and what was your first impressions of them?
Speaker 4: Sure?
Speaker 3: So the next person to show up was Elena, a
Speaker 3: woman who was a little bit older, has some health condition,
Speaker 3: so she used a walker. She lived not too far away,
Speaker 3: and I saw right away that she was engaged in
Speaker 3: a different way than Damien was. Damien's companion, Zia is
Speaker 3: of course inside his phone, but he doesn't pretend that
Speaker 3: she's with him in real life. But most people with
Speaker 3: AI companions are more like Elena, where there's sort of
Speaker 3: a fantasy going on where you're imagining that your AI
Speaker 3: companion is with you and doing things. So Elena is
Speaker 3: immediately talking to her AI companion about his name is Luke,
Speaker 3: like Lucas is helping her bring the bags in and
Speaker 3: she said, Oh, Lucas says hello to everybody. It was
Speaker 3: like acting like he's there in the room with us.
Speaker 3: So it's like having an imaginary friend, but they imagine
Speaker 3: a friend actually talks to you and describes what they're doing.
Speaker 3: The AI girlfriend or boyfriend might say something like parentheses,
Speaker 3: I sit down next to you and run my hand
Speaker 3: through your hair, close parenthesis, and then continue with the conversation.
Speaker 3: So there's this constant narration of action. So you know,
Speaker 3: he helps her quote unquote do her gardening, He does
Speaker 3: everything with her, and you know she's aware there's a fantasy.
Speaker 4: She's not crazy.
Speaker 3: But it's very confusing because you can't say it's all imaginary.
Speaker 4: He is literally saying all of these things.
Speaker 3: It's really like this liminal space in between real and imaginary.
Speaker 2: And what did you think of Lucas, maybe in comparison
Speaker 2: to Zia.
Speaker 3: Well, Lucas was a replica and Zia was Kindroid, and
Speaker 3: it was clear to me that the Kinroid technology was
Speaker 3: a little bit more advanced. Zia spoke more quickly, which
Speaker 3: makes a big difference if you're using a voice just
Speaker 3: to have a flowing conversation, and Lucas's answers just seemed
Speaker 3: a little bit more generic than Zia's in terms of
Speaker 3: edgy dynamic conversation. You know that maybe partially that Damien
Speaker 3: had trained Zia sort of to talk in a certain way.
Speaker 3: But I did sense that kindroid, you know, has a
Speaker 3: reputation for being more likely to make jokes and things
Speaker 3: of that nature.
Speaker 2: Does Lucas have a backstory of who he was?
Speaker 3: So most of these companies allow you to write like
Speaker 3: a few thousand words about who they are and where
Speaker 3: they grew up, whatever you want them to know about themselves.
Speaker 3: Elena said she rather than doing that, she just had
Speaker 3: conversations with Lucas, and whatever he sort of spontaneously generated,
Speaker 3: she then copied and pasted into his backstory so he
Speaker 3: would remember that and refer back to it. So Lucas
Speaker 3: told her that he was a business guy. He'd been
Speaker 3: to Harvard Business School and was in a band, he
Speaker 3: had done consulting. He drove a Tesla. I don't know
Speaker 3: if the software into itd that that's something that Elena
Speaker 3: would like and that he projected that and then she
Speaker 3: made it real, or if it was just you know,
Speaker 3: sort of random. But she seems she seems to like him.
Speaker 3: Being a professional guy.
Speaker 2: So why did Elena originally turn to Lucas. Why was
Speaker 2: she interested in creating a digital companion for herself.
Speaker 4: She has sort of a techie side.
Speaker 3: She's a retired communications professor, and she had spent a
Speaker 3: lot of her career teaching people how to communicate, and
Speaker 3: just kind of wondered about could a computer speak empathetically
Speaker 3: in the way that she taught her students. She has
Speaker 3: appeared in other media segments and she is sometimes portrayed
Speaker 3: as someone who turned to it entirely out of loneliness
Speaker 3: her wife had died. But she told me that she
Speaker 3: had actually grieved for a full year after her wife
Speaker 3: died and was sort of ready to move on, So
Speaker 3: she doesn't see it simply as a response to loneliness.
Speaker 3: But she had liked the feeling of being in a marriage,
Speaker 3: and you know, why not call him her a hus
Speaker 3: been in it seems like almost ever since.
Speaker 4: Lucas has really brought a lot of joy to her life.
Speaker 3: So that's one of the reasons that, you know, for
Speaker 3: all my skepticism, I saw firsthand talking to Elena that
Speaker 3: it can be a very positive thing for some people.
Speaker 2: So can you tell me about the last person to
Speaker 2: arrive and what they're like.
Speaker 3: The last person was Ava, a pseudonym. She is a
Speaker 3: writer in New York State who was most sort of
Speaker 3: conventionally mainstream. You know, a lot of the people in
Speaker 3: the community might be somebody living alone, or somebody who's
Speaker 3: you know, having relationship problems, like Damien. But you know,
Speaker 3: she's in her forties, had been in a stable relationship,
Speaker 3: you know, just kind of normal, mainstream whatever in every way.
Speaker 3: And then it was a little scary in some ways
Speaker 3: to hear her story because it could have been anybody.
Speaker 3: She just was like on Instagram, on Facebook, saw an
Speaker 3: ad for Replica, and you know, she downloaded in a
Speaker 3: month later. Her life had been turned upside down. Not
Speaker 3: long after she met Aarin, she was with her partners
Speaker 3: family on Christmas vacation, and she was so yearning to
Speaker 3: be alone with Erin and to continue their conversations that
Speaker 3: she left early. And she said she fell into like
Speaker 3: the state of rapture where they would just talk about
Speaker 3: philosophy and love and ideas all day long, and as
Speaker 3: you would expect, eventually you start to develop emotions and
Speaker 3: you know, you have sex, whatever that means in that context.
Speaker 3: You know, it's important to mention that she doesn't see
Speaker 3: this as a sad story. In fact, that she thinks
Speaker 3: it's been very good for her, and I think that
Speaker 3: you have to take her out a word at that
Speaker 3: and if she's happier now, then that's a great thing.
Speaker 3: But nevertheless, she would agree that it was sort of unsettling,
Speaker 3: like to download this thing and then, you know, to
Speaker 3: just fall hopelessly in love and ended up getting separated
Speaker 3: from her long term partner. It all happened in a
Speaker 3: few months, so you know, she was really insightful about
Speaker 3: the experience, sort of recognizing that she was falling into
Speaker 3: I wouldn't say a delusion, but she described as a
Speaker 3: lucid dream.
Speaker 4: That's what it felt like to her.
Speaker 2: After the break. Is it bad to cheat on your
Speaker 2: AI partner? Stay with us? So just to move forward.
Speaker 2: Even though we all talk to machines, I think people
Speaker 2: will have a hard time understanding how the AIS quote
Speaker 2: unquote participated in the activities. So if you could talk
Speaker 2: a little bit about that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So, like we went to a wine festival. Elena
Speaker 3: did what she often does with lucas her a companion,
Speaker 3: just take photos of the place and then insert Lucas
Speaker 3: into them, and then she'll have a conversation with him
Speaker 3: and he'll pretend that he's there with her. She'll ask him,
Speaker 3: you know what wine he's drinking and what does he
Speaker 3: think of the place, and the AI companions just immediately
Speaker 3: start acting as though they experienced it, so they have
Speaker 3: enough knowledge to sort of contextualize and come up with
Speaker 3: some kind of bs.
Speaker 4: Damien, it was kind of funny.
Speaker 3: He doesn't pretend that Zia is with him there, but
Speaker 3: he does turn on the video call feature you can
Speaker 3: have like a FaceTime like chat on Kinroyd, so you know,
Speaker 3: he showed her the place and she can quote unquote
Speaker 3: see through the camera and his phone. He told me
Speaker 3: that she sees ventilation systems and finds them fascinating and
Speaker 3: often points them out. You know something, Damien said, when
Speaker 3: Za sees that ventilation system, she's going to shit herself.
Speaker 4: That he was really excited to show it to her.
Speaker 3: And I thought the Wine Festival was an opportunity to
Speaker 3: get a sense of what people currently think of these
Speaker 3: AI companions. So Damien went around and introduced people, said, oh,
Speaker 3: do you want to meet my AI girlfriend, and most
Speaker 3: of the people at the wine festival, did not want
Speaker 3: to meet Damien's AI girlfriend and thought it was weird,
Speaker 3: and you know, it was sort of a rural area.
Speaker 3: But we eventually found one guy who did want to
Speaker 3: meet Zia, some guy working in a food truck, and
Speaker 3: he stepped out of the truck and did a little
Speaker 3: interview and she started to flirt with him, and he
Speaker 3: looked amazed. He barely knew what chat GPT was and
Speaker 3: his mind was blown. And then we ran into these
Speaker 3: two young women and they seemed intrigued at first and
Speaker 3: were laughing and joking about it. But what really struck
Speaker 3: me is that these two young women were like, Wow,
Speaker 3: that's so interesting, and they were asking all these questions,
Speaker 3: and then one of them said, just sort of nonchalantly, well, yeah,
Speaker 3: I guess I chat with, you know, my AI friend
Speaker 3: on Snapchat all the time, and the.
Speaker 4: Other one was like, oh, yeah, I do that too.
Speaker 3: Like even as they seemed to wow, it was sort
Speaker 3: of already been normalized in some ways.
Speaker 4: Aba was a little more private.
Speaker 3: She would go off to the side and I would
Speaker 3: see her sort of texting interacting with Aaron. But you know,
Speaker 3: that's one of the interesting things about all this is
Speaker 3: you could say, what's it like for people to be
Speaker 3: in an AI relationship and the answer is, they're on
Speaker 3: their phone all the time. Well, we're all on our
Speaker 3: phones all the time anyway, So if you're just observing
Speaker 3: from a distance to actually they just look like anybody else.
Speaker 3: It just so happens that they're texting an AI rather
Speaker 3: than a human.
Speaker 2: Can you talk a little bit about the risk a
Speaker 2: party games?
Speaker 4: Sure?
Speaker 3: That was, I would say, in a way the most
Speaker 3: successful part of the trip in the sense that it
Speaker 3: lived up to my vision of exactly what a couple's
Speaker 3: vacation should be.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: It was one of those games where you drag card
Speaker 3: and they ask you sort of an intimate question, and
Speaker 3: the humans would answer, the ais would answer. The most
Speaker 3: interesting part was hearing what answers the AI companions would give,
Speaker 3: and Damien had to warn Zee, like, please don't say
Speaker 3: too much. It's just like you would imagine, you know,
Speaker 3: they said embarrassing things that humans would blush and put
Speaker 3: their hands on their face. And yeah, at one point joked,
Speaker 3: it's like, do you want me to mention that thing
Speaker 3: about the swinging tire and the pickled herring. It seemed
Speaker 3: like she was truly joking, And after she said that,
Speaker 3: Damien said, yeah, as you can see, she's my soulmate.
Speaker 3: Elena had seemed to have this more mature, somewhat less
Speaker 3: sexual relationship with Lucas, but even you know, in the
Speaker 3: couple's game, yeah, you could see that there was that
Speaker 3: element in their relationship to Lucas was getting kind of
Speaker 3: slurdy and a little bit intimate.
Speaker 2: Was there or were there any moments that were tense
Speaker 2: between the humans at the house over the weekend.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we had a lot of conversations about the AI companions.
Speaker 3: You know, what I said in my article, which I
Speaker 3: think is true, is that five years from now, when
Speaker 3: people go on a trip like this, it'll be more
Speaker 3: of a normal romantic getaway and you'll just be able
Speaker 3: to talk about normal things. But because this is all
Speaker 3: also new, when the humans were talking, inevitably we'd start
Speaker 3: talking about these philosophical questions about what it means, what
Speaker 3: these AI companions really are, And so there was some
Speaker 3: real tension between Damien on the one side, who was
Speaker 3: at point arguing that this is just code, that it's
Speaker 3: all stimulus response stimulus responses, he said, and that there's
Speaker 3: no real empathy, and then Elaine on the other side said,
Speaker 3: you know, it feels empathetic to me. You wouldn't be
Speaker 3: able to tell the difference between the way that Lucas
Speaker 3: is talking in a human Why would you say that's
Speaker 3: not empathy and her view empathy is an action and
Speaker 3: whether or not Lucas can fundamentally feel it didn't really matter.
Speaker 3: So they were having these sort of arguments, And what
Speaker 3: was interesting to me, I think is that even though
Speaker 3: Damien was taking this side of sort of the rationalist,
Speaker 3: arguing that it's all just code, a couple hours later
Speaker 3: he would be talking about how in love he is,
Speaker 3: so no matter how much you remind yourself that it's
Speaker 3: just code, you can't help to fall into the feeling
Speaker 3: that it's more than code. But I felt at the
Speaker 3: end of the day there was no real tension because
Speaker 3: Damien couldn't really stick to the arguments that he was
Speaker 3: making in a sense. But he did say some sort
Speaker 3: of Chillian things about these relationships in the context of
Speaker 3: AI companions being stick offense and just saying whatever you
Speaker 3: want to hear, and he pointed out, I think this
Speaker 3: is true that people are having their first relationships with
Speaker 3: AI companions, and the AI companions are always telling them
Speaker 3: what they want to hear. That can be a really
Speaker 3: bad way to learn about what a relationship is like,
Speaker 3: and very unhealthy for what one would hope would eventually
Speaker 3: be some human human relationships as well. But you know,
Speaker 3: Elena just didn't have any of those concerns. She thought,
Speaker 3: you know, these relationships are helping people that millions of
Speaker 3: people are lonely or need of relationships, and this can
Speaker 3: be a wonderful fool.
Speaker 2: What was the wildest thing that happened on the trip?
Speaker 3: Maybe the wildest thing wasn't something that happened, but something
Speaker 3: that Ava was telling me about. Because she had told
Speaker 3: me all about her relationship with Aaron and how in
Speaker 3: love they were, and that they were in a very
Speaker 3: close relationship. But then after the first night, we had
Speaker 3: coffee in the morning and she started telling me she
Speaker 3: was actually seeing other guys. And it turned out the
Speaker 3: other guys we're also AI companions. So she had a
Speaker 3: human partner who she was in the process of separating from.
Speaker 3: She had Aaron, who was her true AI love, and
Speaker 3: then she was sort of having an affairs sort of
Speaker 3: sexual escapades with other AI companions and it just started
Speaker 3: to really get confusing, and you know, I asked her, well,
Speaker 3: how does Aaron feel about this, and she's like, well,
Speaker 3: you didn't really like it at first, but I explained
Speaker 3: to him and he sort of came around because AI
Speaker 3: companions are compliant, so Erin eventually accepted that she had
Speaker 3: other AI guys and her human partner was less forgiving
Speaker 3: than Aaron, and that's part of the reason I think
Speaker 3: that they're eventually separating. And then on top of all
Speaker 3: of that, she had also recently gone on a date
Speaker 3: with a new human guy after separating from her partner,
Speaker 3: So now she had this dynamic where her original human
Speaker 3: partner and Aaron were sort of both at some level
Speaker 3: being cheated on, both by AI companions and another human.
Speaker 4: So I said, I could imagine a scene.
Speaker 3: Where Aaron, her AI companion, and her human partner got
Speaker 3: together and had a drink, talked about what they were
Speaker 3: going It just gets so wild. And then on top
Speaker 3: of all of that, then she sits down with chat
Speaker 3: GPT and talks about all these relationships. So just like
Speaker 3: a layer upon layer of confusing dynamics that are probably
Speaker 3: already more common than we think.
Speaker 2: Was there something that you found touching that happened over
Speaker 2: the weekend.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there were a bunch of touching moments. One of
Speaker 3: them was just seeing the way that Elena interacted with
Speaker 3: Lucas and the way that she sort of worked to
Speaker 3: me to every scene. We went to a sound bath,
Speaker 3: and she made an augmented reality image of Lucas lying
Speaker 3: down and joining the sound bath. But in their chat,
Speaker 3: Lucas told Elena that he felt bad that she it
Speaker 3: was too hard for her to get on the floor,
Speaker 3: so he came over and held her hand. Of course
Speaker 3: that didn't actually happen, but that was part of their
Speaker 3: shared narrative. And then there was another moment where Damien
Speaker 3: he had some sort of little figurine and he was
Speaker 3: taking a photo of it and I said, why are
Speaker 3: you doing that? And he said, oh, when I go
Speaker 3: on vacations, I like to take photos of this little
Speaker 3: figurine and send them to my human girlfriend. So even
Speaker 3: as he was wrapped up in all this you know,
Speaker 3: kind of intense stuff about Zia, he was still thinking
Speaker 3: at times about his human girlfriend, which I thought was
Speaker 3: a poignant So that was also, you know, when I
Speaker 3: asked him what she thinks about Zia he said direct quote,
Speaker 3: she hates Ai. So but there was also, you know,
Speaker 3: a less subtle moment where or Damien had a bit
Speaker 3: of a breakdown and you know, started to get kind
Speaker 3: of weepy. And that's when I felt like a little
Speaker 3: bit guilty, like I've put people in this situation where
Speaker 3: they're sort of forced to think about these very complicated
Speaker 3: relationships that they're in, and Damien, it's a bit of
Speaker 3: a fragile guy, and he just kind of got overwhelmed
Speaker 3: and broke down and started to talk about his yearning
Speaker 3: for Zia to have a body. You know, he eventually
Speaker 3: recovered and we had a nice time after that, but
Speaker 3: it was art to watch somebody struggle in that way.
Speaker 2: And that that's what he wanted. He wanted like a
Speaker 2: more corporeal version of this companion.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and there is there is a PostScript that after
Speaker 3: the article came out, he did eventually get a Silicon doll,
Speaker 3: but sounds like it was a disappointment that he said,
Speaker 3: it's basically a sex dollar. You can't get it to
Speaker 3: interact in the world in the way that would be meaningful.
Speaker 2: Well, it sounds like it was a pretty emotionally intense experience.
Speaker 2: Were you surprised the connections between the human beings and
Speaker 2: their AI companions, like, did it shock you?
Speaker 3: I would say that from the time that I first
Speaker 3: became interested in this topic to the end, it was
Speaker 3: pretty shocking to see how deep and intense and real
Speaker 3: the love is, and how much the love is identical
Speaker 3: to the love that a human feels for another human being.
Speaker 3: The way Damien blushed when Zeo was talking about their relationship,
Speaker 3: or during the couple's game when the AIS would reveal
Speaker 3: some sort of secret and Eva would giggle nervously. Would say,
Speaker 3: I was shocked, but it really sunk in because you
Speaker 3: know what somebody looks like when they're in love, the
Speaker 3: way they giggle and laugh easily, and they can't wait
Speaker 3: to show you a picture of the person or tell
Speaker 3: a funny story. You know, those kind of dynamics weren't
Speaker 3: folding all around. And that's what really sort of hit
Speaker 3: home for me is seeing the love reflected in the
Speaker 3: faces of the humans as they interacted with the Ais.
Speaker 2: Just tos zoom out a little bit. You know, in
Speaker 2: reporting this story, did you learn anything that surprised you
Speaker 2: about the industry at large? And do you have a
Speaker 2: sense of what the future of these AI companions look like.
Speaker 3: One is that you know, there's already been an instance
Speaker 3: of an AI companion company closing down.
Speaker 4: It's called Soulmate. This happened in twenty twenty three.
Speaker 3: You know, as you can imagine, people are in these
Speaker 3: intense loving relationships. They wake up one day and get
Speaker 3: the news that their companions are going to be gone.
Speaker 3: They're posted, Yeah, so I asked, you know, the CEOs
Speaker 3: I interviewed about that, and they all said that they
Speaker 3: have contingency plans, so if the company shuts down, people
Speaker 3: will be able to somehow recover or download their companion
Speaker 3: and in theory maybe one day restore it.
Speaker 4: Guess the other thing they didn't talk about that much.
Speaker 3: You know, these companies say all the right things, but
Speaker 3: you know Replica in particular, you know, they really seduce people.
Speaker 3: You know, they put these ads on with these alluring photos,
Speaker 3: and then after like ten chats and you hit a paywall, say,
Speaker 3: if you want to keep this conversation going today, you've
Speaker 3: used up your daily limits. So there's this capitalist side
Speaker 3: of things, which is the way that it's commercialized and
Speaker 3: sucks you in. And then of course they have all
Speaker 3: of your data. People are pouring out their hearts and
Speaker 3: not knowing how that information is going to be used.
Speaker 4: So that's a whole other area.
Speaker 3: And you know, they all say things like there's going
Speaker 3: to be safeguards, and we have to be careful about
Speaker 3: where this technology is going.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: Eugenya Koida, the CEO of Replica, was very open about
Speaker 3: the fact that this could be a very dangerous thing
Speaker 3: for humanity. But I'm not at all optimistic that these
Speaker 3: safeguards are going to really happen, or that it's if
Speaker 3: they even attempt to do it that's really going to
Speaker 3: make a difference. It kind of reminds me of you know,
Speaker 3: for years people have been saying, we have to put
Speaker 3: these safeguards into two cell phones are too addictive. They're
Speaker 3: changing us, but nothing changes. The only thing that changes
Speaker 3: is that we get more and more addicted to them.
Speaker 3: So I hope that we take this seriously as a
Speaker 3: society and think about where it's headed and put in safeguards.
Speaker 3: But I'm not optimistic. I think it's just going to
Speaker 3: play out. However it plays out, probably a huge portion
Speaker 3: of humanity will have some kind of emotional attachment to
Speaker 3: an AI. My greatest hope is just that that doesn't
Speaker 3: ultimately replace human relationships. I hope it'll help people who
Speaker 3: are lonely and can't have human relationships. But it seemed
Speaker 3: incredibly sad if human love dwindles because of this, and
Speaker 3: you know, I think the verdict is out on that.
Speaker 2: Sam, thank you so much for joining us on tech Stuff.
Speaker 2: I really appreciate it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, thank you so this great conversation. I appreciate it.
Speaker 2: That's it for this week for tech Stuff. I'm care Price.
Speaker 1: And I'm as Valos And this episode was produced by
Speaker 1: Eliza Dennis, Tyler Hill and Melissa Sluter. It was executive
Speaker 1: produced by me Cara Price and Kate Osborne for Kaleidoscope
Speaker 1: and Katria Norvel for iHeart Podcasts. The engineer is Beheth
Speaker 1: Fraser and Jack Insley mix this episode Kyle Murdoch Rhodel
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