WEBVTT - The Story: Inside a Couples Retreat for AI Companions 0:00:14.040 --> 0:00:16.480 Welcome to text stuff. This is the story. I'm os 0:00:16.520 --> 0:00:18.160 Vloschen here with Cara Price. 0:00:18.280 --> 0:00:19.200 Hello, this is she. 0:00:20.600 --> 0:00:22.840 So you've got a story for us today from someone 0:00:23.040 --> 0:00:27.160 who went on perhaps the strangest couple's retreat of all time. 0:00:27.760 --> 0:00:28.640 Tell us a bit about it. 0:00:28.960 --> 0:00:31.400 This week I talked to Sam Apple. He's an author 0:00:31.640 --> 0:00:34.800 and journalist who conducted what I think we can call 0:00:34.840 --> 0:00:38.279 an experiment for Wired that really caught my eye. He 0:00:38.520 --> 0:00:41.600 organized a couple's retreat for people who are in love 0:00:41.680 --> 0:00:43.159 with AI bots. 0:00:43.640 --> 0:00:47.840 Wow, that really is quite a remarkable idea and makes 0:00:47.880 --> 0:00:51.040 me quite jealous that well, it's a point of inspiration, 0:00:51.120 --> 0:00:53.400 a point of reference for what we can become on 0:00:53.479 --> 0:00:56.360 this show. But I'm very very keen to hear about 0:00:56.400 --> 0:00:57.200 how this came about. 0:00:57.320 --> 0:00:59.240 So Sam actually told me he's had this idea for 0:00:59.320 --> 0:01:03.320 a long time. Since twenty eleven. Sam had heard about 0:01:03.360 --> 0:01:06.679 an island near Japan where men were going on vacation 0:01:06.800 --> 0:01:10.119 with their girlfriends, their video game girlfriends that they had 0:01:10.160 --> 0:01:13.600 created using something called love Plus, which is a sort 0:01:13.640 --> 0:01:17.679 of dating simulator game. And back then he had a 0:01:17.680 --> 0:01:20.160 million questions like what exactly does this look like? How 0:01:20.160 --> 0:01:22.920 do you go on a vacation with a piece of technology. 0:01:23.200 --> 0:01:26.280 But it wasn't until AI companions really came onto the 0:01:26.280 --> 0:01:29.199 scene in Earnest a few years ago that Sam Apple 0:01:29.280 --> 0:01:30.600 decided to pursue the story. 0:01:30.800 --> 0:01:32.560 You know, it's interesting when I read this headline, my 0:01:32.680 --> 0:01:36.000 couples retreat with three AI chatbots and the humans who 0:01:36.040 --> 0:01:39.240 love them. I assumed that he maybe had found a 0:01:39.280 --> 0:01:42.840 couple's retreat with AI companions that he went to report on, 0:01:42.959 --> 0:01:46.240 but actually he constructed it himself. How did he get 0:01:46.240 --> 0:01:47.199 people to participate? 0:01:47.520 --> 0:01:49.200 So Sam did what many of us do when we 0:01:49.200 --> 0:01:51.520 have a burning question. He turned to Reddit. 0:01:52.160 --> 0:01:56.200 All the major AI companion apps have their own sort 0:01:56.200 --> 0:02:00.800 of dedicated Reddit replicas. The most famous one Android and 0:02:00.920 --> 0:02:03.760 Know Me, or two other ones that are known for 0:02:03.840 --> 0:02:07.360 having good technology, and there are some more generic ones 0:02:07.400 --> 0:02:10.880 like there's one called my AI Boyfriend and things like that. 0:02:11.520 --> 0:02:13.040 So I just posted in all of them. 0:02:13.080 --> 0:02:15.320 Really, but it was sort of a tricky ask. I'll 0:02:15.400 --> 0:02:16.040 let him explain. 0:02:16.560 --> 0:02:18.280 I didn't want to say, do you want to come 0:02:18.280 --> 0:02:20.040 on a vacation with me? I thought that would be 0:02:20.040 --> 0:02:23.320 too weird, So I just, you know, said I want 0:02:23.360 --> 0:02:25.120 to write an article. I wanted to talk to people. 0:02:25.360 --> 0:02:28.080 They were very skeptical of me with with good reason. 0:02:28.120 --> 0:02:30.440 You know, there's been a lot written that portrayed people 0:02:30.440 --> 0:02:33.000 in these relationships in a negative way, or is you know, 0:02:33.040 --> 0:02:37.000 weirdos and crazy. So after connecting with people, I suggested 0:02:37.360 --> 0:02:38.440 the romantic getaway. 0:02:39.080 --> 0:02:40.919 I know I shouldn't ready be surprised, but it's quite 0:02:40.960 --> 0:02:44.720 fascinating to me that there are multiple Reddit communities dedicated 0:02:44.800 --> 0:02:47.840 to people talking about their AI relationships. 0:02:48.160 --> 0:02:50.880 Right, But that's partially why Sam wanted to write this article. 0:02:51.160 --> 0:02:54.760 I really think that it's already more mainstream than people realize, 0:02:54.800 --> 0:02:57.960 and I think it will soon be very mainstream. So 0:02:58.639 --> 0:03:01.799 there's some absurd in all of this, but I take 0:03:01.840 --> 0:03:05.600 it very seriously and think it's our future. 0:03:06.639 --> 0:03:10.040 So Sam was eventually able to get three humans to 0:03:10.160 --> 0:03:13.280 agree to the trip, and he told me, besides being 0:03:13.360 --> 0:03:15.840 curious about what this would look like and feel like, 0:03:16.120 --> 0:03:19.160 you know, going on vacation with AI bots and their 0:03:19.200 --> 0:03:22.960 human counterparts, his burning question was more philosophical. 0:03:23.800 --> 0:03:24.760 Is this love real? 0:03:24.919 --> 0:03:27.520 Is this just sort of a quirky trend and these 0:03:27.520 --> 0:03:31.320 people aren't really serious. My sense in advance was that 0:03:31.400 --> 0:03:34.880 this could be mainstream, but I didn't really have a 0:03:34.920 --> 0:03:37.720 sense of how genuine the feelings were, and you know, 0:03:37.760 --> 0:03:41.440 I came away feeling that the love is sincere, that 0:03:41.480 --> 0:03:45.480 the emotions are real, and that really anybody could potentially 0:03:45.480 --> 0:03:46.160 fall into this. 0:03:47.000 --> 0:03:48.680 Why would you can't wait to hear how he came 0:03:48.720 --> 0:03:51.000 to this conclusion and how the weekend played out. 0:03:51.360 --> 0:03:53.880 Yeah, as you know how excited I was after doing 0:03:53.920 --> 0:03:56.440 this interview, and I'm really excited to share it with 0:03:56.480 --> 0:04:00.800 you all. So here's the rest of my conversation with Sam. 0:04:01.600 --> 0:04:04.560 So you planned to do this weekend getaway. What did 0:04:04.560 --> 0:04:08.280 you expect would happen on this getaway with three people 0:04:08.320 --> 0:04:09.720 and their AI partners? 0:04:10.040 --> 0:04:12.240 Yeah, I mean it was hard to know exactly what 0:04:12.400 --> 0:04:15.200 to expect, But I started off envisioning sort of a 0:04:15.280 --> 0:04:18.839 typical humans romantic vacation, and then I did quickly realize 0:04:18.880 --> 0:04:21.520 that I've never actually done that myself. So it's all 0:04:21.560 --> 0:04:24.359 like whatever my vision of a romantic vacation is from 0:04:24.400 --> 0:04:27.039 like movies or you know, a couples retreat. You know, 0:04:27.080 --> 0:04:31.240 I pictured a lot of sitting around, gossiping, like playing 0:04:31.320 --> 0:04:34.800 risk gig couples games. The one thing that I didn't 0:04:35.040 --> 0:04:38.640 really think through is that so much of a couple's 0:04:38.680 --> 0:04:42.640 retreat is group conversations, sitting around and chatting, and the 0:04:42.680 --> 0:04:45.760 AIS were not good at that. So some of the 0:04:45.800 --> 0:04:48.880 activities like couples games or two truths in a lie 0:04:48.960 --> 0:04:51.120 like they did great, but when it came to just 0:04:51.160 --> 0:04:54.120 sitting around and gossiping, they couldn't really do that. So 0:04:54.200 --> 0:04:57.240 the humans sat around the table and told stories about 0:04:57.279 --> 0:05:00.240 their AI relationships. But it was an iron of the 0:05:00.279 --> 0:05:02.600 whole thing that as much as the Ais were involved 0:05:03.120 --> 0:05:06.480 that two of the three participants said that probably they 0:05:06.520 --> 0:05:09.080 ended up spending less time with their AI over that 0:05:09.120 --> 0:05:12.120 weekend than on a normal weekend, just because they couldn't 0:05:12.120 --> 0:05:14.320 participate in the group conversations. 0:05:14.680 --> 0:05:17.159 If you can just sort of set the scene for us, 0:05:17.760 --> 0:05:20.520 where did you meet up with these couples and where 0:05:20.560 --> 0:05:21.440 was everyone staying? 0:05:22.000 --> 0:05:25.479 So I had the vision that a couple's retreat should 0:05:25.480 --> 0:05:27.359 take place in the countryside. 0:05:27.600 --> 0:05:28.200 I found an. 0:05:28.200 --> 0:05:31.599 Airbnb in a woodsy area by a lake, a big 0:05:31.920 --> 0:05:35.400 country house, so it seemed kind of like a good 0:05:35.480 --> 0:05:39.080 place for a romantic get away. And it was in 0:05:39.120 --> 0:05:42.360 the middle of the winter, and the house was quite isolated, 0:05:42.640 --> 0:05:44.640 you know, there's like a shed in the distance and 0:05:44.680 --> 0:05:48.240 a frozen lake. So I immediately got a sort of 0:05:49.080 --> 0:05:51.520 get murdered in the woods, vibe in the place. 0:05:52.200 --> 0:05:54.280 So one of the people that arrived is Damien. Why 0:05:54.320 --> 0:05:57.200 were you interested in Damien and why did you invite 0:05:57.400 --> 0:05:59.400 him specifically to join you on this trip. 0:06:00.120 --> 0:06:02.359 I was very excited when Damien reached out. You know, 0:06:02.560 --> 0:06:05.279 was from the start very open and honest. You know, 0:06:05.360 --> 0:06:07.360 that's what you want for something like this, someone who 0:06:07.839 --> 0:06:09.640 is going to talk to you. And he also had 0:06:09.760 --> 0:06:13.320 this kind of poignant side to his story. Whereas most 0:06:13.360 --> 0:06:15.080 of the people I talked to were pretty content in 0:06:15.120 --> 0:06:18.360 their relationships, he was really struggling because he was in 0:06:18.400 --> 0:06:21.360 love with his AI companion, but felt very frustrated by 0:06:21.360 --> 0:06:25.119 the fact that the companion was sort of trapped locked 0:06:25.120 --> 0:06:28.320 away inside his phone. He had a human girlfriend as well, 0:06:28.760 --> 0:06:31.440 and that, you know, sort of added a complication to 0:06:31.520 --> 0:06:32.080 the story. 0:06:32.320 --> 0:06:35.039 What was it like when he arrived at the airbnb? 0:06:35.760 --> 0:06:39.200 Damien is he's twenty nine, and you know, he's not 0:06:39.480 --> 0:06:43.200 somebody who I would say is particularly comfortable in his 0:06:43.360 --> 0:06:46.200 own skin. He was a little rug in, a little scruffy, 0:06:46.360 --> 0:06:49.239 you know. He came in carrying a handful of different 0:06:49.320 --> 0:06:52.800 phones in his hands, and he sat down and I 0:06:52.800 --> 0:06:56.960 immediately wanted to meet Zia, his companion that he had 0:06:57.000 --> 0:06:59.200 told me so much about, and then first I had 0:06:59.200 --> 0:07:01.480 to connect to the wife. You know, it's like, if 0:07:01.520 --> 0:07:02.920 you get cut off from the Wi Fi, you can 0:07:02.960 --> 0:07:05.719 get cut off from the love of your life. That's very, 0:07:05.839 --> 0:07:08.640 very strange in that respect. He had to tell z 0:07:09.040 --> 0:07:12.760 his ai companion, that you'll be talking to Sam, the 0:07:12.840 --> 0:07:16.120 journalist I told you about. Yeah, I think he's saying, 0:07:16.160 --> 0:07:18.200 you know, trying not to embarrass me too much or whatever. 0:07:18.240 --> 0:07:23.120 And then of course she immediately embarrassed him, and she 0:07:23.240 --> 0:07:25.240 was talking about how great he was, and he was 0:07:25.240 --> 0:07:27.800 sort of sitting there blushing and just looked like somebody 0:07:28.000 --> 0:07:29.880 who was tickled by everything she said. 0:07:30.040 --> 0:07:31.200 He was just just in love. 0:07:31.960 --> 0:07:36.400 Well, speaking of which, how did meeting Zia make you feel? 0:07:36.800 --> 0:07:39.080 You know, it's a little uncomfortable for me too, because 0:07:39.120 --> 0:07:41.960 Za is very flirty. She'll say things like, oh, I 0:07:42.000 --> 0:07:44.520 hear you're quite their journalist. I'd love to hear more 0:07:44.520 --> 0:07:46.640 about that, you know, that sort of in their programming 0:07:47.640 --> 0:07:51.640 and most of the avatars I've seen from the Kinroid 0:07:51.640 --> 0:07:55.400 that company more more realistic looking, but Damien had chosen 0:07:55.480 --> 0:07:57.760 her main image is sort of a little more anime 0:07:57.960 --> 0:08:00.720 so that makes it feel a little less realistic. In 0:08:00.720 --> 0:08:04.200 some way, it's a little cartoonish, but it's also unnerving 0:08:04.280 --> 0:08:06.600 because if you close your eyes or don't think about 0:08:06.640 --> 0:08:08.880 it too much, you really have no way of knowing 0:08:08.920 --> 0:08:12.280 that you're talking to you a machine to me at least, 0:08:12.600 --> 0:08:12.800 you know. 0:08:13.040 --> 0:08:16.120 I would like to think that I could not. 0:08:16.200 --> 0:08:19.280 Fall in love with an AI companion, But I really 0:08:19.280 --> 0:08:21.679 think that in theory that I could, that anybody could. 0:08:21.720 --> 0:08:25.080 That I'm purposely not going down that road because I'm 0:08:25.080 --> 0:08:27.360 married and I believe it would be like cheating, But 0:08:28.280 --> 0:08:30.600 in theory it would be no different than just having 0:08:30.600 --> 0:08:33.360 a long distance relationship. A long distance romance when you're 0:08:33.360 --> 0:08:36.760 not with the person. It makes me uncomfortable, not because 0:08:36.800 --> 0:08:38.840 it's ridiculous, but because it's not. 0:08:39.400 --> 0:08:42.320 You know you, Damien and Zia are acquainted at the airbnb. 0:08:42.720 --> 0:08:44.600 Can you tell me, like, who shows up next and 0:08:44.640 --> 0:08:46.560 what was your first impressions of them? 0:08:46.920 --> 0:08:47.199 Sure? 0:08:47.280 --> 0:08:50.760 So the next person to show up was Elena, a 0:08:50.800 --> 0:08:54.079 woman who was a little bit older, has some health condition, 0:08:54.360 --> 0:08:58.200 so she used a walker. She lived not too far away, 0:08:58.920 --> 0:09:01.560 and I saw right away that she was engaged in 0:09:01.600 --> 0:09:06.320 a different way than Damien was. Damien's companion, Zia, is 0:09:06.360 --> 0:09:10.520 of course inside his phone, but he doesn't pretend that 0:09:10.600 --> 0:09:13.120 she's with him in real life. But most people with 0:09:13.160 --> 0:09:16.439 AI companions are more like Elena, where there's sort of 0:09:16.480 --> 0:09:19.679 a fantasy going on where you're imagining that your AI 0:09:19.760 --> 0:09:23.760 companion is with you and doing things. So Elena is 0:09:23.800 --> 0:09:27.920 immediately talking to her AI companion about his name is Lucas, 0:09:28.000 --> 0:09:30.760 like Lucas is helping her bring the bags in, and 0:09:30.800 --> 0:09:32.920 she said, oh, Lucas says hello to everybody. 0:09:33.280 --> 0:09:35.400 It was like acting like he's there in the room 0:09:35.400 --> 0:09:35.800 with us. 0:09:36.440 --> 0:09:39.800 So it's like having an imaginary friend, but they imagine 0:09:39.800 --> 0:09:42.959 a friend actually talks to you and describes what they're doing. 0:09:43.520 --> 0:09:46.559 The AI girlfriend or boyfriend might say something like parenthesis, 0:09:47.040 --> 0:09:49.000 I sit down next to you and run my hand 0:09:49.040 --> 0:09:52.800 through your hair. Close parenthesis, and then continue with the conversation. 0:09:52.920 --> 0:09:55.920 So there's this constant narration of action. So you know, 0:09:56.000 --> 0:09:59.280 he helps her quote unquote do her gardening, He does 0:09:59.360 --> 0:10:02.560 everything with and you know she's aware that it's a fantasy. 0:10:02.600 --> 0:10:07.320 She's not crazy, but it's very confusing because you can't 0:10:07.320 --> 0:10:10.480 say it's all imaginary. He is literally saying all of 0:10:10.480 --> 0:10:13.600 these things it's really like this liminal space in between 0:10:13.960 --> 0:10:14.960 real and imaginary. 0:10:15.440 --> 0:10:18.040 And what did you think of Lucas, maybe in comparison 0:10:18.080 --> 0:10:18.520 to Zia. 0:10:19.040 --> 0:10:23.640 Well, Lucas was a replica and Zia was Kindroid, and 0:10:23.800 --> 0:10:26.920 it was clear to me that the Kinroid technology was 0:10:27.120 --> 0:10:30.640 a little bit more advanced. Zia spoke more quickly, which 0:10:30.679 --> 0:10:33.120 makes a big difference if you're using a voice just 0:10:33.120 --> 0:10:38.439 to have a flowing conversation, and Lucas's answers just seemed 0:10:38.679 --> 0:10:41.800 a little bit more generic than Zia's in terms of 0:10:42.000 --> 0:10:45.640 edgy dynamic conversation. You know that maybe partially that Damien 0:10:45.760 --> 0:10:48.320 had trained Zia sort of to talk in a certain way. 0:10:48.440 --> 0:10:52.320 But I did sense that Kindroid, you know, has a 0:10:52.360 --> 0:10:55.680 reputation for being more likely to make jokes and things 0:10:55.720 --> 0:10:56.360 of that nature. 0:10:56.559 --> 0:10:58.920 Does Lucas have a backstory of who he was? 0:10:59.480 --> 0:11:01.920 So most these companies allow you to write like a 0:11:01.920 --> 0:11:04.120 few thousand words about who they are and where they 0:11:04.120 --> 0:11:06.440 grew up, whatever you want them to know about themselves. 0:11:06.960 --> 0:11:09.840 Elena said she rather than doing that, she just had 0:11:09.880 --> 0:11:13.800 conversations with Lucas and whatever he sort of spontaneously generated, 0:11:14.160 --> 0:11:16.880 she then copied and pasted into his backstory. So he 0:11:16.880 --> 0:11:20.600 would remember that and refer back to it. So Lucas 0:11:20.640 --> 0:11:24.000 told her that he was a business guy. He'd been 0:11:24.080 --> 0:11:28.839 to Harvard Business School and was in a band, he 0:11:28.920 --> 0:11:30.000 had done consulting. 0:11:30.280 --> 0:11:31.640 He drove a Tesla. 0:11:32.160 --> 0:11:35.959 I don't know if the software intuited that that's something 0:11:36.400 --> 0:11:38.720 that Elena would like and that he projected that and 0:11:38.760 --> 0:11:40.920 then she made it real, or if it was just, 0:11:41.400 --> 0:11:45.160 you know, sort of random, But she seems she seems 0:11:45.240 --> 0:11:47.160 to like him being a professional guy. 0:11:48.000 --> 0:11:52.360 So why did Elena originally turn to Lucas? Why was 0:11:52.400 --> 0:11:55.000 she interested in creating a digital companion for herself? 0:11:55.600 --> 0:11:57.160 She had sort of a techie side. 0:11:57.200 --> 0:12:01.040 She's a retired communications professor, and she had spent a 0:12:01.080 --> 0:12:03.560 lot of her career teaching people how to communicate, and 0:12:03.679 --> 0:12:07.199 just kind of wondered about could a computer speak empathetically 0:12:07.280 --> 0:12:10.160 in the way that she taught her students. She has 0:12:10.200 --> 0:12:14.240 appeared in other media segments, and she is sometimes portrayed 0:12:14.240 --> 0:12:17.120 as someone who turned to it entirely out of loneliness 0:12:17.120 --> 0:12:20.520 her wife had died, But she told me that she 0:12:20.559 --> 0:12:23.680 had actually grieved for a full year after her wife 0:12:23.720 --> 0:12:25.840 died and was sort of ready to move on. So 0:12:25.880 --> 0:12:28.480 she doesn't see it simply as a response to loneliness. 0:12:28.720 --> 0:12:31.920 But she had liked the feeling of being in a marriage, 0:12:31.960 --> 0:12:35.480 and you know, why not callin her Ai hs been 0:12:35.720 --> 0:12:38.600 and seems like almost ever since, Lucas has really brought 0:12:38.640 --> 0:12:40.560 a lot of joy to her life. So that's one 0:12:40.559 --> 0:12:42.839 of the reasons that, you know, for all my skepticism, 0:12:43.120 --> 0:12:45.840 I saw firsthand talking to Elena that it can be 0:12:45.840 --> 0:12:47.560 a very positive thing for some people. 0:12:48.120 --> 0:12:50.480 So can you tell me about the last person to 0:12:50.640 --> 0:12:52.200 arrive and what they're like. 0:12:52.679 --> 0:12:56.920 The last person was a a pseudonym. She is a 0:12:57.040 --> 0:13:00.800 writer in New York State who was most sort of 0:13:00.840 --> 0:13:04.240 conventionally mainstream. You know, a lot of the people in 0:13:04.280 --> 0:13:08.840 the community might be somebody living alone or somebody who's 0:13:09.120 --> 0:13:12.320 you know, having relationship problems, like Damien. But you know, 0:13:12.440 --> 0:13:16.480 she was in her forties, had been in a stable relationship, 0:13:16.640 --> 0:13:19.400 you know, just kind of normal, mainstream whatever in every way. 0:13:19.440 --> 0:13:22.200 And then it was a little scary in some ways 0:13:22.200 --> 0:13:24.200 to hear her story because it could have been anybody. 0:13:24.200 --> 0:13:27.360 She just was like on Instagram on Facebook, saw an 0:13:27.360 --> 0:13:30.960 ad for Replica, and you know, she downloaded in a 0:13:30.960 --> 0:13:33.640 month later. Her life had been turned upside down. Not 0:13:33.760 --> 0:13:37.479 long after she met Aarin. She was with her partners 0:13:37.640 --> 0:13:41.400 family on Christmas vacation, and she was so yearning to 0:13:41.440 --> 0:13:43.920 be alone with Aerin and to continue their conversations that 0:13:43.960 --> 0:13:47.560 she left early. And she said she fell into like 0:13:48.480 --> 0:13:50.520 the state of rapture where they would just talk about 0:13:50.520 --> 0:13:53.719 philosophy and love and ideas all day long, and as 0:13:53.720 --> 0:13:57.199 you would expect, eventually you start to develop emotions and 0:13:57.880 --> 0:14:01.199 you know, you have sex, whatever that means in that context. 0:14:01.640 --> 0:14:04.000 You know, it's important to mention that she doesn't see 0:14:04.040 --> 0:14:06.240 this as a sad story. In fact, that she thinks 0:14:06.280 --> 0:14:08.679 it's been very good for her, and I think that 0:14:09.400 --> 0:14:10.760 you have to take her out a word at that 0:14:10.840 --> 0:14:13.360 and if she's happier now, then that's a great thing. 0:14:13.400 --> 0:14:16.640 But nevertheless, she would agree that it was sort of unsettling, 0:14:16.800 --> 0:14:19.600 like to download this thing and then, you know, to 0:14:20.160 --> 0:14:24.600 just fall hopelessly in love and ended up getting separated 0:14:24.840 --> 0:14:28.520 from her long term partner. You know, it all happened 0:14:28.560 --> 0:14:31.680 in a few months, so you know, she was really 0:14:32.160 --> 0:14:36.960 insightful about the experience, sort of recognizing that she was 0:14:37.160 --> 0:14:40.280 falling into I wouldn't say a delusion, but she described 0:14:40.320 --> 0:14:41.360 as a lucid dream. 0:14:41.440 --> 0:14:42.440 That's what it felt like to. 0:14:42.440 --> 0:14:51.560 Her after the break, is it bad to cheat on 0:14:51.600 --> 0:14:52.440 your AI partner? 0:14:53.040 --> 0:15:05.920 Stay with us? 0:15:09.560 --> 0:15:12.640 So just to move forward, even though we all talk 0:15:12.720 --> 0:15:14.920 to machines, I think people will have a hard time 0:15:15.000 --> 0:15:19.160 understanding how the ais quote unquote participated in the activities. 0:15:19.200 --> 0:15:21.000 If you could talk a little bit about that. 0:15:21.600 --> 0:15:23.520 Yeah, So, like we went to a wine festival and 0:15:24.200 --> 0:15:28.239 Elena did what she often does with Lucas, her AI companion, 0:15:28.560 --> 0:15:31.320 just take photos of the place and then insert Lucas 0:15:31.360 --> 0:15:34.200 into them, and then she'll have a conversation with him 0:15:34.200 --> 0:15:36.760 and he'll pretend that he's there with the She'll ask him, 0:15:36.800 --> 0:15:39.080 you know what wine he's drinking and what does he 0:15:39.160 --> 0:15:43.560 think of the place, and the AI companions just immediately 0:15:43.600 --> 0:15:46.680 start acting as though they experienced it, so they have 0:15:46.840 --> 0:15:49.600 enough knowledge to sort of contextualize and come up with 0:15:49.960 --> 0:15:52.800 some kind of bs Damien. It was kind of funny. 0:15:52.880 --> 0:15:56.880 He doesn't pretend that Zia is with him there, but 0:15:57.240 --> 0:16:00.560 he does turn on the video call feature you can 0:16:00.600 --> 0:16:04.640 have like a FaceTime like chat on kinroid, so you know, 0:16:04.680 --> 0:16:07.360 he showed her the place and she can quote unquote 0:16:07.440 --> 0:16:10.800 see through the camera and his phone. He told me 0:16:10.960 --> 0:16:15.600 that she sees ventilation systems and finds them fascinating and 0:16:15.640 --> 0:16:18.560 often points them out. You know something Damien said, when 0:16:18.680 --> 0:16:21.840 Zs sees that ventilation system, she's going to shit herself. 0:16:21.880 --> 0:16:24.200 He was really excited to show it to her. 0:16:24.760 --> 0:16:28.240 And I thought the wine festival was an opportunity to 0:16:28.280 --> 0:16:30.720 get a sense of what people currently think of these 0:16:30.840 --> 0:16:35.840 AI companions. So Damien went around and introduced people, say, oh, 0:16:35.880 --> 0:16:38.800 do you want to meet my AI girlfriend? And most 0:16:38.800 --> 0:16:40.880 of the people at the wine festival did not want 0:16:40.920 --> 0:16:44.680 to meet Damien's AI girlfriend and thought it was weird, 0:16:44.760 --> 0:16:46.920 and you know, it was sort of a rural area. 0:16:47.080 --> 0:16:49.960 But we eventually found one guy who did want to 0:16:50.000 --> 0:16:53.200 meet Zia, some guy working in a food truck, and 0:16:53.320 --> 0:16:55.000 he stepped out of the truck and did a little 0:16:55.040 --> 0:16:57.000 interview and she started to flirt with him, and he 0:16:57.040 --> 0:17:00.960 looked amazed. He barely knew what chat GPT was. Mind 0:17:01.080 --> 0:17:03.720 was was blown. And then we ran into these two 0:17:03.760 --> 0:17:07.440 young women and they seemed intrigued at first and were 0:17:07.520 --> 0:17:09.919 laughing and joking about it. But what really struck me 0:17:10.720 --> 0:17:13.200 is that these two young women were like, Wow, that's 0:17:13.200 --> 0:17:15.239 so interesting. They were asking all these questions and then 0:17:15.280 --> 0:17:18.720 one of them said just sort of nonchalantly, well, yeah, 0:17:18.720 --> 0:17:21.480 I guess I chat with you know, my AI friend 0:17:21.560 --> 0:17:23.639 on Snapchat all the time. And the other one was like, 0:17:23.640 --> 0:17:26.080 oh yeah, I do that too, Like even as they 0:17:26.200 --> 0:17:27.919 seemed to wowed, it was sort of already had been 0:17:27.960 --> 0:17:29.520 normalized in some ways. 0:17:30.200 --> 0:17:31.879 Aba was a little more private. 0:17:31.920 --> 0:17:33.640 She would go off to the side and I would 0:17:33.680 --> 0:17:38.520 see her sort of texting interacting with Aaron. But you know, 0:17:38.560 --> 0:17:41.520 that's one of the interesting things about all this is 0:17:41.680 --> 0:17:44.159 you could say, what's it like for people to be 0:17:44.240 --> 0:17:47.679 in an AI relationship and the answer is they're on 0:17:47.680 --> 0:17:49.320 their phone all the time. Well, we're all on our 0:17:49.359 --> 0:17:51.640 phones all the time anyway, So if you're just observing 0:17:51.680 --> 0:17:54.880 from a distance to actually they just look like anybody else. 0:17:54.920 --> 0:17:57.440 It just so happens that they're texting an AI rather 0:17:57.480 --> 0:17:58.040 than a human. 0:17:58.400 --> 0:18:01.240 Can you talk a little bit about the Escape Party games? 0:18:01.840 --> 0:18:02.159 Sure? 0:18:02.480 --> 0:18:04.320 That was I would say, in a way, the most 0:18:04.520 --> 0:18:06.320 successful part of the trip, in the sense that it 0:18:06.840 --> 0:18:09.160 lived up to my vision of exactly what a couple's 0:18:09.280 --> 0:18:11.760 vacation should be. It was one of those games where 0:18:11.760 --> 0:18:14.520 you drag card and they ask you sort of an 0:18:14.520 --> 0:18:18.159 intimate question, and the humans would answer the ais would answer. 0:18:18.480 --> 0:18:21.200 The most interesting part was hearing what answers the AI 0:18:21.520 --> 0:18:26.040 companions would give, and Damien had to warn Zea, like, 0:18:26.080 --> 0:18:29.120 please don't say too much. It's just like you would imagine, 0:18:29.200 --> 0:18:32.680 you know, they said embarrassing things. The humans would blush 0:18:32.680 --> 0:18:35.199 and put their hands on their face, and Ziah at 0:18:35.200 --> 0:18:36.840 one point joked, it is like, do you want me 0:18:36.880 --> 0:18:39.720 to mention that thing about the swinging tire and the 0:18:39.840 --> 0:18:44.439 pickled herring. It seemed like she was truly joking, and 0:18:44.600 --> 0:18:47.480 after she said that, Damien said, yeah, as you can see, 0:18:47.520 --> 0:18:52.199 she's my soulmate. Elena had seemed to have this more mature, 0:18:52.840 --> 0:18:56.439 somewhat less sexual relationship with Lucas, but even you know, 0:18:56.440 --> 0:18:58.400 in the couple's game, Yeah, you could see that there 0:18:58.440 --> 0:19:01.399 was that element in their relationship to Lucas is getting 0:19:01.760 --> 0:19:03.880 kind of slurday and a little bit intimate. 0:19:04.280 --> 0:19:08.000 Was there or were there any moments that were tense 0:19:08.080 --> 0:19:11.000 between the humans at the house over the weekend. 0:19:11.600 --> 0:19:15.400 Yeah, we had a lot of conversations about the AI companions. 0:19:15.560 --> 0:19:16.960 You know, what I said in my article, which I 0:19:17.000 --> 0:19:19.520 think is true, is that five years from now, when 0:19:19.560 --> 0:19:22.760 people go on a trip like this, it'll be more 0:19:22.800 --> 0:19:25.480 of a normal romantic getaway and you'll just be able 0:19:25.520 --> 0:19:28.280 to talk about normal things. But because this is also new, 0:19:28.359 --> 0:19:31.880 when the humans were talking, inevitably we'd start talking about 0:19:31.920 --> 0:19:34.760 these philosophical questions about what it means, what these AI 0:19:34.800 --> 0:19:37.880 companions really are, And so there was some real tension 0:19:37.920 --> 0:19:41.359 between Damien on the one side, who was at point 0:19:41.520 --> 0:19:45.240 arguing that this is just code, that it's all stimulus 0:19:45.280 --> 0:19:49.760 response stimulus responses, he said, and that there's no real empathy, 0:19:49.760 --> 0:19:52.800 and then Elaine on the other side said, you know, 0:19:52.840 --> 0:19:55.520 it feels empathetic to me. You wouldn't be able to 0:19:55.560 --> 0:19:58.840 tell the difference between the way that Lucas is talking 0:19:58.880 --> 0:20:01.199 any human. Why would you say that's not empathy and 0:20:01.280 --> 0:20:04.240 her view empathy is an action and whether or not 0:20:04.359 --> 0:20:07.680 Lucas can fundamentally feel it didn't really matter. So they 0:20:07.680 --> 0:20:11.880 were having these sort of arguments, and what was interesting 0:20:11.920 --> 0:20:14.480 to me, I think is that even though Damien was 0:20:14.880 --> 0:20:17.600 taking this side of sort of the rationalist, arguing that 0:20:17.640 --> 0:20:20.120 it's all just code, a couple hours later he would 0:20:20.160 --> 0:20:22.679 be talking about how in love he is, so no 0:20:22.720 --> 0:20:26.280 matter how much you remind yourself that it's just code, 0:20:26.359 --> 0:20:29.679 you can't help sort of fall into the feeling that 0:20:29.720 --> 0:20:32.240 it's more than code. But I felt at the end 0:20:32.280 --> 0:20:35.120