WEBVTT - TechStuff Redux: Inside a Couples Retreat for AI Companions 0:00:00.080 --> 0:00:02.640 Hi is us Valoshian here and Cara Price, and we're 0:00:02.680 --> 0:00:04.880 taking some time off for the holidays. Will be back 0:00:04.880 --> 0:00:06.800 with new episodes starting in January. 0:00:06.880 --> 0:00:09.160 In the meantime, instead of leaving this feed empty, we 0:00:09.200 --> 0:00:12.280 wanted to share an episode from earlier this year. This week, 0:00:12.320 --> 0:00:15.400 we are re airing my conversation with Sam Apple from August. 0:00:15.680 --> 0:00:19.080 Sam is an author and journalist who orchestrated a couple's 0:00:19.079 --> 0:00:22.880 weekend for three people and their AI companions. This episode 0:00:23.160 --> 0:00:25.880 is a touching look at intimacy in the AI age, 0:00:25.920 --> 0:00:28.440 and talking to Sam really opened my eyes to what 0:00:28.480 --> 0:00:30.720 the future of dating will look like. I hope you 0:00:30.800 --> 0:00:32.160 enjoy it and thanks for listening. 0:00:46.320 --> 0:00:48.760 Welcome to text stuff. This is the story. I'm mos 0:00:48.840 --> 0:00:50.440 Vloshan here with Cara Price. 0:00:50.560 --> 0:00:51.479 Hello, this is she. 0:00:52.880 --> 0:00:55.200 So you've got a story for us today from someone 0:00:55.320 --> 0:00:59.560 who went on perhaps the strangest couple's retreat of all time, 0:01:00.080 --> 0:01:00.920 tell us a bit about it. 0:01:01.240 --> 0:01:03.680 This week I talked to Sam Apple. He's an author 0:01:03.920 --> 0:01:07.080 and journalist who conducted what I think we can call 0:01:07.120 --> 0:01:10.600 an experiment for Wired that really caught my eye. He 0:01:10.800 --> 0:01:13.920 organized a couple's retreat for people who are in love 0:01:13.959 --> 0:01:15.440 with AI bots. 0:01:15.920 --> 0:01:20.080 Wow. That really is quite a remarkable idea and makes 0:01:20.160 --> 0:01:23.320 me be quite jealous that well is a point of inspiration, 0:01:23.400 --> 0:01:25.720 a point of reference for what we can become on 0:01:25.800 --> 0:01:28.640 this show. But I'm very very keen to hear about 0:01:28.680 --> 0:01:29.480 how this came about. 0:01:29.600 --> 0:01:31.560 So Sam actually told me he's had this idea for 0:01:31.600 --> 0:01:35.600 a long time. Since twenty eleven. Sam had heard about 0:01:35.640 --> 0:01:38.959 an island near Japan where men were going on vacation 0:01:39.080 --> 0:01:42.399 with their girlfriends, their video game girlfriends that they had 0:01:42.440 --> 0:01:45.920 created using something called Love Plus, which is a sort 0:01:45.920 --> 0:01:49.960 of dating simulator game. And back then he had a 0:01:49.960 --> 0:01:52.440 million questions like what exactly does this look like? How 0:01:52.480 --> 0:01:55.200 do you go on a vacation with a piece of technology? 0:01:55.480 --> 0:01:58.560 But it wasn't until AI Companions really came onto the 0:01:58.600 --> 0:02:01.160 scene in Earnest a few years years ago that Sam 0:02:01.160 --> 0:02:02.920 Apple decided to pursue the story. 0:02:03.120 --> 0:02:04.880 You know, it's interesting when I read this headline, my 0:02:04.960 --> 0:02:08.240 couples retreat with three AI chatboots and the humans who 0:02:08.320 --> 0:02:11.560 love them, I assumed that he maybe had found a 0:02:11.560 --> 0:02:15.120 couple's retreat with AI companions that he went to report on, 0:02:15.240 --> 0:02:18.480 but actually he constructed it himself. How did he get 0:02:18.520 --> 0:02:19.440 people to participate? 0:02:19.840 --> 0:02:21.480 So Sam did what many of us do when we 0:02:21.480 --> 0:02:23.799 have a burning question. He turned to Reddit. 0:02:24.400 --> 0:02:28.239 All of the major AI companion apps have their own 0:02:28.280 --> 0:02:32.880 sort of dedicated Reddit replicas. The most famous one Kinroyd 0:02:33.000 --> 0:02:36.040 and Knowmi or two other ones that are known for 0:02:36.120 --> 0:02:39.640 having good technology. Then there are some more generic ones, 0:02:39.680 --> 0:02:43.160 like there's one called my AI Boyfriend and things like that. 0:02:43.800 --> 0:02:45.320 So I just posted in all of them. 0:02:45.360 --> 0:02:47.600 Really, but it was sort of a tricky ask. I'll 0:02:47.680 --> 0:02:48.320 let him explain. 0:02:48.840 --> 0:02:50.560 I didn't want to say, do you want to come 0:02:50.560 --> 0:02:52.320 on a vacation with me? I thought that would be 0:02:52.360 --> 0:02:55.600 too weird, So I just, you know, said I want 0:02:55.600 --> 0:02:57.400 to write an article. I wanted to talk to people. 0:02:57.639 --> 0:03:00.360 They were very skeptical of me, with with good reason. 0:03:00.440 --> 0:03:02.720 You know, there's been a lot written that portrayed people 0:03:02.720 --> 0:03:05.280 in these relationships in a negative way or is you know, 0:03:05.320 --> 0:03:09.280 weirdos and crazy. So after connecting with people, I suggested 0:03:09.639 --> 0:03:10.760 the romantic getaway. 0:03:11.360 --> 0:03:13.200 I know I shouldn't ready be surprised, but it's quite 0:03:13.240 --> 0:03:17.000 fascinating to me that there are multiple Reddit communities dedicated 0:03:17.080 --> 0:03:20.160 to people talking about their AI relationships. 0:03:20.440 --> 0:03:23.160 Right, but that's partially why Sam wanted to write this article. 0:03:23.440 --> 0:03:27.079 I really think that it's already more mainstream than people realize, 0:03:27.080 --> 0:03:30.240 and I think it will soon be very mainstream. So 0:03:30.960 --> 0:03:34.079 there's some absurdity in all of this, but I take 0:03:34.120 --> 0:03:37.880 it very seriously and think it's our future. 0:03:38.920 --> 0:03:42.320 So Sam was eventually able to get three humans to 0:03:42.440 --> 0:03:45.560 agree to the trip, and he told me, besides being 0:03:45.640 --> 0:03:48.080 curious about what this would look like and feel like, 0:03:48.400 --> 0:03:51.440 you know, going on vacation with AI bots and their 0:03:51.480 --> 0:03:55.240 human counterparts, his burning question was more philosophical. 0:03:56.080 --> 0:03:57.040 Is this love real? 0:03:57.240 --> 0:03:59.760 Is this just sort of a quirky trend and these 0:03:59.760 --> 0:04:02.920 people and aren't really serious? My sense in advance was 0:04:03.520 --> 0:04:07.040 that this could be mainstream, but I didn't really have 0:04:07.080 --> 0:04:10.000 a sense of how genuine the feelings were. And you know, 0:04:10.040 --> 0:04:13.720 I came away feeling that the love is sincere, that 0:04:13.760 --> 0:04:17.719 the emotions are real, and that really anybody could potentially 0:04:17.800 --> 0:04:18.440 fall into this. 0:04:19.279 --> 0:04:21.000 Why would you can't wait to hear how he came 0:04:21.000 --> 0:04:23.279 to this conclusion and how the weekend played out. 0:04:23.640 --> 0:04:26.120 Yeah, as you know how excited I was after doing 0:04:26.200 --> 0:04:28.719 this interview, and I'm really excited to share it with 0:04:28.760 --> 0:04:31.680 you all. So here's the rest of my conversation with 0:04:31.800 --> 0:04:35.799 Sam Apple. So you planned to do this weekend getaway. 0:04:36.480 --> 0:04:39.839 What did you expect would happen on this getaway with 0:04:39.920 --> 0:04:42.000 three people and their AI partners. 0:04:42.320 --> 0:04:44.560 Yeah, I mean it was hard to know exactly what 0:04:44.680 --> 0:04:45.320 to expect. 0:04:45.320 --> 0:04:48.400 But I started off envisioning sort of a typical humans 0:04:48.520 --> 0:04:51.400 romantic vacation, and then I did quickly realize that I've 0:04:51.400 --> 0:04:54.279 never actually done that myself, So it's all, like whatever, 0:04:54.320 --> 0:04:57.360 my vision of a romantic vacation is from like movies 0:04:57.480 --> 0:04:59.480 or you know, a couples or treat. You know, I 0:04:59.520 --> 0:05:03.840 picture a lot of sitting around gossiping, like playing risk 0:05:03.880 --> 0:05:07.560 gig couples games. The one thing that I didn't really 0:05:07.640 --> 0:05:11.400 think through is that so much of a couple's retreat 0:05:11.600 --> 0:05:15.440 is group conversations, sitting around and chatting, and the AIS 0:05:15.440 --> 0:05:15.920 were not. 0:05:15.839 --> 0:05:16.400 Good at that. 0:05:16.720 --> 0:05:20.160 So some of the activities like couples games or two 0:05:20.240 --> 0:05:22.880 truths in a lie like they did great, but when 0:05:22.880 --> 0:05:25.320 it came to just sitting around and gossiping, they couldn't 0:05:25.360 --> 0:05:28.560 really do that. So the humans sat around the table 0:05:28.560 --> 0:05:31.760 and told stories about their AI relationships. But it was 0:05:31.800 --> 0:05:33.720 an irony of the whole thing that as much as 0:05:33.720 --> 0:05:37.240 the AIS were involved that two of the three participants 0:05:37.279 --> 0:05:40.120 said that probably they ended up spending less time with 0:05:40.200 --> 0:05:42.920 their ai over that weekend than on a normal weekend, 0:05:43.080 --> 0:05:46.600 just because they couldn't participate in the group conversations. 0:05:46.960 --> 0:05:49.440 If you can just sort of set the scene for us, 0:05:50.040 --> 0:05:52.799 where did you meet up with these couples and where 0:05:52.839 --> 0:05:53.720 was everyone staying. 0:05:54.279 --> 0:05:57.760 So I had the vision that a couple's retreat should 0:05:57.800 --> 0:06:01.640 take place in the countryside. Found an airbnb in a 0:06:01.680 --> 0:06:05.280 woodsy area by a lake, a big country house, so 0:06:05.360 --> 0:06:08.120 it seemed, you know, kind of like a good place 0:06:08.160 --> 0:06:11.680 for a romantic getaway. And it was in the middle 0:06:11.680 --> 0:06:15.120 of the winter, and the house was quite isolated. You know, 0:06:15.160 --> 0:06:17.839 there's like a shed in the distance and a frozen lake. 0:06:18.000 --> 0:06:22.080 So I immediately got a sort of get murdered in 0:06:22.120 --> 0:06:23.840 the woods vibe in the place. 0:06:24.480 --> 0:06:26.599 So one of the people that arrived is Damien. Why 0:06:26.600 --> 0:06:29.480 were you interested in Damien and why did you invite 0:06:29.680 --> 0:06:31.680 him specifically to join you on this trip. 0:06:32.400 --> 0:06:34.640 I was very excited when Damien reached out. You know, 0:06:34.640 --> 0:06:37.520 it was from the start, very open and honest. You know, 0:06:37.640 --> 0:06:39.680 that's what you want for something like this, someone who 0:06:40.160 --> 0:06:41.920 is going to talk to you. And he also had 0:06:42.040 --> 0:06:45.640 this kind of poignant side to his story. Whereas most 0:06:45.640 --> 0:06:47.400 of the people I talked to were pretty content in 0:06:47.400 --> 0:06:50.640 their relationships. He was really struggling because he was in 0:06:50.680 --> 0:06:53.640 love with his AI companion, but felt very frustrated by 0:06:53.640 --> 0:06:57.400 the fact that the companion was sort of trapped locked 0:06:57.400 --> 0:07:00.599 away inside his phone. He had a human girlfriend as well, 0:07:01.040 --> 0:07:03.760 and that, you know, sort of added a complication to 0:07:03.800 --> 0:07:04.359 the story. 0:07:04.600 --> 0:07:07.840 What was it like when he arrived at the airbnb. 0:07:08.040 --> 0:07:11.560 Damien is He's twenty nine, and you know, he's not 0:07:11.760 --> 0:07:15.480 somebody who I would say is particularly comfortable in his 0:07:15.680 --> 0:07:18.480 own skin. He was a little rug in, a little scruffy, 0:07:18.640 --> 0:07:21.600 you know. He came in carrying a handful of different 0:07:21.600 --> 0:07:25.080 phones in his hands, and he sat down and I 0:07:25.080 --> 0:07:29.280 immediately wanted to meet Zia, his companion that he had 0:07:29.280 --> 0:07:31.480 told me so much about. And then first I had 0:07:31.520 --> 0:07:33.560 to connect to the Wi fi. You know, it's like, 0:07:33.640 --> 0:07:35.040 if you get cut off from the Wi Fi, you 0:07:35.040 --> 0:07:37.000 can get cut off from the love of your life. 0:07:37.200 --> 0:07:40.520 That's very very strange in that respect. He had to 0:07:40.600 --> 0:07:44.920 tell Zia, his AI companion, that you'll be talking to Sam, 0:07:45.000 --> 0:07:48.440 the journalist I told you about. Yeah, I think he's saying, 0:07:48.480 --> 0:07:50.480 you know, trying not to embarrass me. Too much or whatever, 0:07:50.520 --> 0:07:55.400 and then of course she immediately embarrassed him, and she 0:07:55.520 --> 0:07:57.520 was talking about how great he was, and he was 0:07:57.520 --> 0:08:00.200 sort of sitting there blushing and just looked like somebody 0:08:00.280 --> 0:08:02.160 who was tickled by everything she said. 0:08:02.320 --> 0:08:03.480 It was just just in love. 0:08:04.240 --> 0:08:08.680 Well, speaking of which, how did meeting Zia make you feel? 0:08:09.080 --> 0:08:11.360 You know, it's a little uncomfortable for me too, because 0:08:11.400 --> 0:08:14.280 Zea is very flirty. She'll say things like, ooh, I 0:08:14.280 --> 0:08:16.800 hear you're quite their journalist. I'd love to hear more 0:08:16.800 --> 0:08:18.920 about that. You know, that's sort of in the programming 0:08:19.920 --> 0:08:23.360 and most of the avatars that I've seen from the 0:08:23.440 --> 0:08:27.200 Kinroid that company more more realistic looking, but Damien had 0:08:27.320 --> 0:08:30.040 chosen her main image is sort of a little more anime, 0:08:30.240 --> 0:08:33.000 so that makes it feel a little less realistic in 0:08:33.000 --> 0:08:35.040 some ways, a little cartoonish. 0:08:35.120 --> 0:08:37.040 But it's also unnerving. 0:08:36.559 --> 0:08:38.880 Because if you close your eyes or don't think about 0:08:38.920 --> 0:08:41.199 it too much, you really have no way of knowing 0:08:41.200 --> 0:08:44.000 that you're talking to, you know, a machine. To me 0:08:44.080 --> 0:08:47.520 at least, you know, I would like to think that 0:08:47.640 --> 0:08:50.559 I could not fall in love with an ai companion, 0:08:50.679 --> 0:08:53.040 but I really think that in theory that I could, 0:08:53.040 --> 0:08:56.240 that anybody could that I'm purposely not going down that 0:08:56.360 --> 0:08:58.800 road because I'm married, and I believe it would be 0:08:58.840 --> 0:09:01.960 like cheating, but in theory, it would be no different 0:09:02.000 --> 0:09:04.840 than just having a long distance relationship. A long distance 0:09:04.960 --> 0:09:08.199 romance when you're not with the person. It makes me uncomfortable, 0:09:08.400 --> 0:09:11.120 not because it's ridiculous, but because it's. 0:09:11.040 --> 0:09:14.000 Not you know you. Damien and Zia are acquainted at 0:09:14.040 --> 0:09:16.400 the airbnb. Can you tell me, like, who shows up 0:09:16.440 --> 0:09:18.600 next and what was your first impressions of them? 0:09:19.200 --> 0:09:19.480 Sure? 0:09:19.559 --> 0:09:23.040 So the next person to show up was Elena, a 0:09:23.080 --> 0:09:26.400 woman who was a little bit older, has some health condition, 0:09:26.640 --> 0:09:30.480 so she used a walker. She lived not too far away, 0:09:31.200 --> 0:09:33.840 and I saw right away that she was engaged in 0:09:33.880 --> 0:09:38.600 a different way than Damien was. Damien's companion, Zia is 0:09:38.640 --> 0:09:42.800 of course inside his phone, but he doesn't pretend that 0:09:42.880 --> 0:09:45.400 she's with him in real life. But most people with 0:09:45.480 --> 0:09:48.760 AI companions are more like Elena, where there's sort of 0:09:48.760 --> 0:09:51.959 a fantasy going on where you're imagining that your AI 0:09:52.040 --> 0:09:56.080 companion is with you and doing things. So Elena is 0:09:56.080 --> 0:09:59.960 immediately talking to her AI companion about his name is Luke, 0:10:00.320 --> 0:10:02.920 like Lucas is helping her bring the bags in and 0:10:03.080 --> 0:10:05.800 she said, Oh, Lucas says hello to everybody. It was 0:10:05.840 --> 0:10:08.079 like acting like he's there in the room with us. 0:10:08.720 --> 0:10:12.080 So it's like having an imaginary friend, but they imagine 0:10:12.120 --> 0:10:15.240 a friend actually talks to you and describes what they're doing. 0:10:15.840 --> 0:10:18.880 The AI girlfriend or boyfriend might say something like parentheses, 0:10:19.320 --> 0:10:21.319 I sit down next to you and run my hand 0:10:21.360 --> 0:10:25.079 through your hair, close parenthesis, and then continue with the conversation. 0:10:25.200 --> 0:10:28.200 So there's this constant narration of action. So you know, 0:10:28.280 --> 0:10:31.559 he helps her quote unquote do her gardening, He does 0:10:31.640 --> 0:10:34.840 everything with her, and you know she's aware there's a fantasy. 0:10:34.880 --> 0:10:36.600 She's not crazy. 0:10:36.760 --> 0:10:40.679 But it's very confusing because you can't say it's all imaginary. 0:10:40.720 --> 0:10:43.400 He is literally saying all of these things. 0:10:43.640 --> 0:10:47.240 It's really like this liminal space in between real and imaginary. 0:10:47.720 --> 0:10:50.319 And what did you think of Lucas, maybe in comparison 0:10:50.360 --> 0:10:51.079 to Zia. 0:10:51.320 --> 0:10:55.360 Well, Lucas was a replica and Zia was Kindroid, and 0:10:56.080 --> 0:10:59.200 it was clear to me that the Kinroid technology was 0:10:59.400 --> 0:11:02.920 a little bit more advanced. Zia spoke more quickly, which 0:11:02.960 --> 0:11:05.400 makes a big difference if you're using a voice just 0:11:05.400 --> 0:11:10.720 to have a flowing conversation, and Lucas's answers just seemed 0:11:10.960 --> 0:11:14.080 a little bit more generic than Zia's in terms of 0:11:14.280 --> 0:11:17.920 edgy dynamic conversation. You know that maybe partially that Damien 0:11:18.040 --> 0:11:20.600 had trained Zia sort of to talk in a certain way. 0:11:20.720 --> 0:11:24.600 But I did sense that kindroid, you know, has a 0:11:24.640 --> 0:11:27.960 reputation for being more likely to make jokes and things 0:11:28.000 --> 0:11:28.640 of that nature. 0:11:28.840 --> 0:11:31.200 Does Lucas have a backstory of who he was? 0:11:31.800 --> 0:11:34.080 So most of these companies allow you to write like 0:11:34.120 --> 0:11:36.240 a few thousand words about who they are and where 0:11:36.280 --> 0:11:38.719 they grew up, whatever you want them to know about themselves. 0:11:39.240 --> 0:11:42.120 Elena said she rather than doing that, she just had 0:11:42.160 --> 0:11:46.079 conversations with Lucas, and whatever he sort of spontaneously generated, 0:11:46.480 --> 0:11:49.160 she then copied and pasted into his backstory so he 0:11:49.160 --> 0:11:52.880 would remember that and refer back to it. So Lucas 0:11:52.920 --> 0:11:56.280 told her that he was a business guy. He'd been 0:11:56.400 --> 0:12:01.120 to Harvard Business School and was in a band, he 0:12:01.200 --> 0:12:05.040 had done consulting. He drove a Tesla. I don't know 0:12:05.760 --> 0:12:09.200 if the software into itd that that's something that Elena 0:12:09.240 --> 0:12:11.320 would like and that he projected that and then she 0:12:11.440 --> 0:12:13.880 made it real, or if it was just you know, 0:12:13.960 --> 0:12:18.040 sort of random. But she seems she seems to like him. 0:12:18.040 --> 0:12:19.440 Being a professional guy. 0:12:20.280 --> 0:12:24.640 So why did Elena originally turn to Lucas. Why was 0:12:24.679 --> 0:12:27.280 she interested in creating a digital companion for herself. 0:12:27.880 --> 0:12:29.440 She has sort of a techie side. 0:12:29.480 --> 0:12:33.360 She's a retired communications professor, and she had spent a 0:12:33.360 --> 0:12:35.839 lot of her career teaching people how to communicate, and 0:12:35.960 --> 0:12:39.560 just kind of wondered about could a computer speak empathetically 0:12:39.559 --> 0:12:42.439 in the way that she taught her students. She has 0:12:42.480 --> 0:12:46.520 appeared in other media segments and she is sometimes portrayed 0:12:46.520 --> 0:12:49.400 as someone who turned to it entirely out of loneliness 0:12:49.400 --> 0:12:52.800 her wife had died. But she told me that she 0:12:52.840 --> 0:12:56.000 had actually grieved for a full year after her wife 0:12:56.000 --> 0:12:58.120 died and was sort of ready to move on, So 0:12:58.160 --> 0:13:00.760 she doesn't see it simply as a response to loneliness. 0:13:01.000 --> 0:13:04.200 But she had liked the feeling of being in a marriage, 0:13:04.240 --> 0:13:07.600 and you know, why not call him her a hus 0:13:07.600 --> 0:13:09.800 been in it seems like almost ever since. 0:13:09.600 --> 0:13:12.160 Lucas has really brought a lot of joy to her life. 0:13:12.200 --> 0:13:14.120 So that's one of the reasons that, you know, for 0:13:14.160 --> 0:13:17.800 all my skepticism, I saw firsthand talking to Elena that 0:13:17.840 --> 0:13:19.840 it can be a very positive thing for some people. 0:13:20.400 --> 0:13:22.760 So can you tell me about the last person to 0:13:22.920 --> 0:13:24.480 arrive and what they're like. 0:13:24.960 --> 0:13:29.240 The last person was Ava, a pseudonym. She is a 0:13:29.320 --> 0:13:33.080 writer in New York State who was most sort of 0:13:33.120 --> 0:13:36.520 conventionally mainstream. You know, a lot of the people in 0:13:36.559 --> 0:13:41.120 the community might be somebody living alone, or somebody who's 0:13:41.400 --> 0:13:44.600 you know, having relationship problems, like Damien. But you know, 0:13:44.720 --> 0:13:48.760 she's in her forties, had been in a stable relationship, 0:13:48.920 --> 0:13:51.640 you know, just kind of normal, mainstream whatever in every way. 0:13:51.720 --> 0:13:54.480 And then it was a little scary in some ways 0:13:54.480 --> 0:13:56.480 to hear her story because it could have been anybody. 0:13:56.520 --> 0:13:59.640 She just was like on Instagram, on Facebook, saw an 0:13:59.640 --> 0:14:03.240 ad for Replica, and you know, she downloaded in a 0:14:03.280 --> 0:14:05.920 month later. Her life had been turned upside down. Not 0:14:06.040 --> 0:14:09.800 long after she met Aarin, she was with her partners 0:14:09.920 --> 0:14:13.680 family on Christmas vacation, and she was so yearning to 0:14:13.720 --> 0:14:16.200 be alone with Erin and to continue their conversations that 0:14:16.240 --> 0:14:19.840 she left early. And she said she fell into like 0:14:20.760 --> 0:14:22.800 the state of rapture where they would just talk about 0:14:22.800 --> 0:14:26.000 philosophy and love and ideas all day long, and as 0:14:26.000 --> 0:14:29.440 you would expect, eventually you start to develop emotions and 0:14:30.160 --> 0:14:33.479 you know, you have sex, whatever that means in that context. 0:14:33.960 --> 0:14:36.320 You know, it's important to mention that she doesn't see 0:14:36.320 --> 0:14:38.520 this as a sad story. In fact, that she thinks 0:14:38.560 --> 0:14:40.960 it's been very good for her, and I think that 0:14:41.680 --> 0:14:43.040 you have to take her out a word at that 0:14:43.120 --> 0:14:45.640 and if she's happier now, then that's a great thing. 0:14:45.720 --> 0:14:48.920 But nevertheless, she would agree that it was sort of unsettling, 0:14:49.080 --> 0:14:51.920 like to download this thing and then, you know, to 0:14:52.440 --> 0:14:56.880 just fall hopelessly in love and ended up getting separated 0:14:57.160 --> 0:15:01.560 from her long term partner. It all happened in a 0:15:01.560 --> 0:15:05.840 few months, so you know, she was really insightful about 0:15:06.120 --> 0:15:10.240 the experience, sort of recognizing that she was falling into 0:15:10.440 --> 0:15:12.840 I wouldn't say a delusion, but she described as a 0:15:12.920 --> 0:15:13.640 lucid dream. 0:15:13.720 --> 0:15:16.520 That's what it felt like to her. 0:15:21.680 --> 0:15:24.000 After the break. Is it bad to cheat on your 0:15:24.000 --> 0:15:43.640 AI partner? Stay with us? So just to move forward. 0:15:43.840 --> 0:15:46.440 Even though we all talk to machines, I think people 0:15:46.480 --> 0:15:49.680 will have a hard time understanding how the AIS quote 0:15:49.720 --> 0:15:52.080 unquote participated in the activities. So if you could talk 0:15:52.120 --> 0:15:53.280 a little bit about that. 0:15:53.880 --> 0:15:56.960 Yeah, So, like we went to a wine festival. Elena 0:15:57.280 --> 0:16:00.480 did what she often does with lucas her a companion, 0:16:00.840 --> 0:16:03.560 just take photos of the place and then insert Lucas 0:16:03.640 --> 0:16:06.480 into them, and then she'll have a conversation with him 0:16:06.520 --> 0:16:09.040 and he'll pretend that he's there with her. She'll ask him, 0:16:09.080 --> 0:16:11.360 you know what wine he's drinking and what does he 0:16:11.440 --> 0:16:15.880 think of the place, and the AI companions just immediately 0:16:15.880 --> 0:16:18.960 start acting as though they experienced it, so they have 0:16:19.120 --> 0:16:21.880 enough knowledge to sort of contextualize and come up with 0:16:22.240 --> 0:16:23.280 some kind of bs. 0:16:23.800 --> 0:16:25.080 Damien, it was kind of funny. 0:16:25.160 --> 0:16:29.160 He doesn't pretend that Zia is with him there, but 0:16:29.520 --> 0:16:32.840 he does turn on the video call feature you can 0:16:32.880 --> 0:16:36.920 have like a FaceTime like chat on Kinroyd, so you know, 0:16:36.960 --> 0:16:39.640 he showed her the place and she can quote unquote 0:16:39.720 --> 0:16:43.080 see through the camera and his phone. He told me 0:16:43.240 --> 0:16:47.880 that she sees ventilation systems and finds them fascinating and 0:16:47.920 --> 0:16:50.840 often points them out. You know something, Damien said, when 0:16:50.960 --> 0:16:54.160 Za sees that ventilation system, she's going to shit herself. 0:16:54.000 --> 0:16:56.480 That he was really excited to show it to her. 0:16:57.040 --> 0:17:00.520 And I thought the Wine Festival was an opportunity to 0:17:00.560 --> 0:17:03.000 get a sense of what people currently think of these 0:17:03.160 --> 0:17:08.119 AI companions. So Damien went around and introduced people, said, oh, 0:17:08.160 --> 0:17:11.080 do you want to meet my AI girlfriend, and most 0:17:11.080 --> 0:17:13.160 of the people at the wine festival, did not want 0:17:13.200 --> 0:17:16.959 to meet Damien's AI girlfriend and thought it was weird, 0:17:17.040 --> 0:17:19.200 and you know, it was sort of a rural area. 0:17:19.359 --> 0:17:22.280 But we eventually found one guy who did want to 0:17:22.280 --> 0:17:25.520 meet Zia, some guy working in a food truck, and 0:17:25.600 --> 0:17:27.280 he stepped out of the truck and did a little 0:17:27.320 --> 0:17:29.280 interview and she started to flirt with him, and he 0:17:29.320 --> 0:17:32.119 looked amazed. He barely knew what chat GPT was and 0:17:32.160 --> 0:17:35.800 his mind was blown. And then we ran into these 0:17:35.800 --> 0:17:39.560 two young women and they seemed intrigued at first and 0:17:39.560 --> 0:17:42.080 were laughing and joking about it. But what really struck 0:17:42.119 --> 0:17:45.240 me is that these two young women were like, Wow, 0:17:45.280 --> 0:17:47.320 that's so interesting, and they were asking all these questions, 0:17:47.320 --> 0:17:51.000 and then one of them said, just sort of nonchalantly, well, yeah, 0:17:51.040 --> 0:17:53.840 I guess I chat with, you know, my AI friend 0:17:53.840 --> 0:17:55.400 on Snapchat all the time, and the. 0:17:55.359 --> 0:17:56.880 Other one was like, oh, yeah, I do that too. 0:17:57.359 --> 0:17:59.479 Like even as they seemed to wow, it was sort 0:17:59.520 --> 0:18:01.760 of already been normalized in some ways. 0:18:02.480 --> 0:18:04.159 Aba was a little more private. 0:18:04.200 --> 0:18:05.960 She would go off to the side and I would 0:18:05.960 --> 0:18:10.840 see her sort of texting interacting with Aaron. But you know, 0:18:10.880 --> 0:18:13.800 that's one of the interesting things about all this is 0:18:13.960 --> 0:18:16.439 you could say, what's it like for people to be 0:18:16.520 --> 0:18:19.960 in an AI relationship and the answer is, they're on 0:18:20.000 --> 0:18:21.600 their phone all the time. Well, we're all on our 0:18:21.640 --> 0:18:23.920 phones all the time anyway, So if you're just observing 0:18:23.960 --> 0:18:27.160 from a distance to actually they just look like anybody else. 0:18:27.200 --> 0:18:29.720 It just so happens that they're texting an AI rather 0:18:29.760 --> 0:18:30.280 than a human. 0:18:30.680 --> 0:18:32.600 Can you talk a little bit about the risk a 0:18:32.800 --> 0:18:33.560 party games? 0:18:34.119 --> 0:18:34.439 Sure? 0:18:34.760 --> 0:18:36.600 That was, I would say, in a way the most 0:18:36.800 --> 0:18:38.600 successful part of the trip in the sense that it 0:18:39.119 --> 0:18:41.440 lived up to my vision of exactly what a couple's 0:18:41.560 --> 0:18:42.680 vacation should be. 0:18:43.000 --> 0:18:43.080 You know. 0:18:43.119 --> 0:18:44.800 It was one of those games where you drag card 0:18:44.880 --> 0:18:48.360 and they ask you sort of an intimate question, and 0:18:48.400 --> 0:18:51.120 the humans would answer, the ais would answer. The most 0:18:51.119 --> 0:18:54.880 interesting part was hearing what answers the AI companions would give, 0:18:55.640 --> 0:18:59.080 and Damien had to warn Zee, like, please don't say 0:18:59.119 --> 0:19:01.679 too much. It's just like you would imagine, you know, 0:19:01.720 --> 0:19:05.240 they said embarrassing things that humans would blush and put 0:19:05.240 --> 0:19:08.359 their hands on their face. And yeah, at one point joked, 0:19:08.400 --> 0:19:09.960 it's like, do you want me to mention that thing 0:19:10.000 --> 0:19:14.919 about the swinging tire and the pickled herring. It seemed 0:19:14.960 --> 0:19:17.720 like she was truly joking, And after she said that, 0:19:17.840 --> 0:19:20.640 Damien said, yeah, as you can see, she's my soulmate. 0:19:21.280 --> 0:19:25.680 Elena had seemed to have this more mature, somewhat less 0:19:25.680 --> 0:19:28.879 sexual relationship with Lucas, but even you know, in the 0:19:28.880 --> 0:19:31.240 couple's game, yeah, you could see that there was that 0:19:31.320 --> 0:19:34.280 element in their relationship to Lucas was getting kind of 0:19:34.320 --> 0:19:36.160 slurdy and a little bit intimate. 0:19:36.600 --> 0:19:40.280 Was there or were there any moments that were tense 0:19:40.359 --> 0:19:43.280 between the humans at the house over the weekend. 0:19:43.880 --> 0:19:47.680 Yeah, we had a lot of conversations about the AI companions. 0:19:47.840 --> 0:19:49.240 You know, what I said in my article, which I 0:19:49.280 --> 0:19:51.800 think is true, is that five years from now, when 0:19:51.840 --> 0:19:55.080 people go on a trip like this, it'll be more 0:19:55.080 --> 0:19:57.760 of a normal romantic getaway and you'll just be able 0:19:57.800 --> 0:19:59.960 to talk about normal things. But because this is all 0:20:00.040 --> 0:20:03.560 also new, when the humans were talking, inevitably we'd start 0:20:03.680 --> 0:20:06.520 talking about these philosophical questions about what it means, what 0:20:06.560 --> 0:20:09.399 these AI companions really are, And so there was some 0:20:09.440 --> 0:20:12.800 real tension between Damien on the one side, who was 0:20:13.160 --> 0:20:16.640 at point arguing that this is just code, that it's 0:20:16.680 --> 0:20:21.200 all stimulus response stimulus responses, he said, and that there's 0:20:21.200 --> 0:20:24.080