Speaker 1: Welcome to text stuff. This is the story. I'm os
Speaker 1: Vloschen 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 quite jealous that well, it's 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 ago that Sam Apple
Speaker 2: 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 chatbots 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 the major AI companion apps have their own sort
Speaker 3: of dedicated Reddit replicas. The most famous one Android and
Speaker 3: Know Me, or two other ones that are known for
Speaker 3: having good technology, and there are some more generic ones
Speaker 3: like there's one called my AI Boyfriend and things like that.
Speaker 3: 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 absurd 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 aren't really serious. My sense in advance was that
Speaker 3: this could be mainstream, but I didn't really have a
Speaker 3: 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 Sam.
Speaker 2: So you planned to do this weekend getaway. What did
Speaker 2: you expect would happen on this getaway with three people
Speaker 2: and their AI partners?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean it was hard to know exactly what
Speaker 3: to expect, But I started off envisioning sort of a
Speaker 3: typical humans romantic vacation, and then I did quickly realize
Speaker 3: that I've never actually done that myself. So it's all
Speaker 3: like whatever my vision of a romantic vacation is from
Speaker 3: like movies or you know, a couples retreat. You know,
Speaker 3: I pictured a lot of sitting around, gossiping, like playing
Speaker 3: risk gig couples games. The one thing that I didn't
Speaker 3: really think through is that so much of a couple's
Speaker 3: retreat is group conversations, sitting around and chatting, and the
Speaker 3: AIS were not good at that. So some of the
Speaker 3: activities like couples games or two truths in a lie
Speaker 3: like they did great, but when it came to just
Speaker 3: sitting around and gossiping, they couldn't really do that. So
Speaker 3: the humans sat around the table and told stories about
Speaker 3: their AI relationships. But it was an iron of the
Speaker 3: whole thing that as much as the Ais were involved
Speaker 3: that two of the three participants said that probably they
Speaker 3: ended up spending less time with their AI over that
Speaker 3: weekend than on a normal weekend, just because they couldn't
Speaker 3: 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.
Speaker 4: I found an.
Speaker 3: Airbnb in a woodsy area by a lake, a big
Speaker 3: country house, so it seemed kind of like a good
Speaker 3: place for a romantic get away. And it was in
Speaker 3: the middle of the winter, and the house was quite isolated,
Speaker 3: you know, there's like a shed in the distance and
Speaker 3: a frozen lake. So I immediately got a sort of
Speaker 3: get murdered in 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: 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 wife. You know, it's like, if
Speaker 3: you get cut off from the Wi Fi, you can
Speaker 3: get cut off from the love of your life. That's very,
Speaker 3: very strange in that respect. He had to tell z
Speaker 3: his ai companion, that you'll be talking to Sam, the
Speaker 3: 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: He 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: Za is very flirty. She'll say things like, oh, I
Speaker 3: hear you're quite their journalist. I'd love to hear more
Speaker 3: about that, you know, that sort of in their programming
Speaker 3: and most of the avatars I've seen from the Kinroid
Speaker 3: that company more more realistic looking, but Damien had chosen
Speaker 3: 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 way, it's a little cartoonish, 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 a machine to me at least,
Speaker 3: you know.
Speaker 4: I would like to think that I could not.
Speaker 3: Fall in love with an AI companion, But I really
Speaker 3: think that in theory that I could, that anybody could.
Speaker 3: That I'm purposely not going down that road because I'm
Speaker 3: married and I believe it would be like cheating, But
Speaker 3: in theory it would be no different than just having
Speaker 3: a long distance relationship. A long distance romance when you're
Speaker 3: not with the person. It makes me uncomfortable, not because
Speaker 3: it's ridiculous, but because it's not.
Speaker 2: You know you, Damien and Zia are acquainted at the airbnb.
Speaker 2: Can you tell me, like, who shows up next and
Speaker 2: 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 Lucas,
Speaker 3: like Lucas is helping her bring the bags in, and
Speaker 3: she said, oh, Lucas says hello to everybody.
Speaker 4: It was like acting like he's there in the room
Speaker 4: 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 parenthesis,
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 and you know she's aware that it's a fantasy.
Speaker 3: She's not crazy, but it's very confusing because you can't
Speaker 3: say it's all imaginary. He is literally saying all of
Speaker 3: these things it's really like this liminal space in between
Speaker 3: 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 these companies allow you to write like a
Speaker 3: few thousand words about who they are and where they
Speaker 3: 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.
Speaker 4: He drove a Tesla.
Speaker 3: I don't know if the software intuited that that's something
Speaker 3: that Elena would like and that he projected that and
Speaker 3: then she made it real, or if it was just,
Speaker 3: you know, sort of random, But she seems she seems
Speaker 3: to like him 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 had 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 callin her Ai hs been
Speaker 3: and seems like almost ever since, Lucas has really brought
Speaker 3: a lot of joy to her life. So that's one
Speaker 3: of the reasons that, you know, for all my skepticism,
Speaker 3: I saw firsthand talking to Elena that it can be
Speaker 3: 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 a 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 was 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 Aerin 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. You know, it all happened
Speaker 3: in a few months, so you know, she was really
Speaker 3: insightful about the experience, sort of recognizing that she was
Speaker 3: falling into I wouldn't say a delusion, but she described
Speaker 3: as a lucid dream.
Speaker 4: That's what it felt like to.
Speaker 5: Her after the break, is it bad to cheat on
Speaker 5: your AI partner?
Speaker 6: Stay with us?
Speaker 2: So just to move forward, even though we all talk
Speaker 2: to machines, I think people will have a hard time
Speaker 2: understanding how the ais quote unquote participated in the activities.
Speaker 2: If you could talk a little bit about that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So, like we went to a wine festival and
Speaker 3: Elena did what she often does with Lucas, her AI 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 the 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 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 kinroid, 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: Zs sees that ventilation system, she's going to shit herself.
Speaker 4: 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, say, 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. Mind
Speaker 3: was was blown. And then we ran into these two
Speaker 3: young women and they seemed intrigued at first and were
Speaker 3: laughing and joking about it. But what really struck me
Speaker 3: is that these two young women were like, Wow, that's
Speaker 3: so interesting. They were asking all these questions and then
Speaker 3: 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 other one was like,
Speaker 3: oh yeah, I do that too, Like even as they
Speaker 3: seemed to wowed, it was sort of already had been
Speaker 3: 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 Escape 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. It was one of those games where
Speaker 3: you drag card and they ask you sort of an
Speaker 3: intimate question, and the humans would answer the ais would answer.
Speaker 3: The most interesting part was hearing what answers the AI
Speaker 3: companions would give, and Damien had to warn Zea, like,
Speaker 3: please don't say too much. It's just like you would imagine,
Speaker 3: you know, they said embarrassing things. The humans would blush
Speaker 3: and put their hands on their face, and Ziah at
Speaker 3: one point joked, it is like, do you want me
Speaker 3: to mention that thing about the swinging tire and the
Speaker 3: pickled herring. It seemed like she was truly joking, and
Speaker 3: after she said that, Damien said, yeah, as you can see,
Speaker 3: she's my soulmate. Elena had seemed to have this more mature,
Speaker 3: somewhat less sexual relationship with Lucas, but even you know,
Speaker 3: in the couple's game, Yeah, you could see that there
Speaker 3: was that element in their relationship to Lucas is getting
Speaker 3: kind of slurday 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 also new,
Speaker 3: when the humans were talking, inevitably we'd start talking about
Speaker 3: these philosophical questions about what it means, what these AI
Speaker 3: companions really are, And so there was some real tension
Speaker 3: between Damien on the one side, who was at point
Speaker 3: arguing that this is just code, that it's all stimulus
Speaker 3: response stimulus responses, he said, and that there's no real empathy,
Speaker 3: and then Elaine on the other side said, you know,
Speaker 3: it feels empathetic to me. You wouldn't be able to
Speaker 3: tell the difference between the way that Lucas is talking
Speaker 3: any human. Why would you say that's not empathy and
Speaker 3: her view empathy is an action and whether or not
Speaker 3: Lucas can fundamentally feel it didn't really matter. So they
Speaker 3: were having these sort of arguments, and what was interesting
Speaker 3: to me, I think is that even though Damien was
Speaker 3: taking this side of sort of the rationalist, arguing that
Speaker 3: it's all just code, a couple hours later he would
Speaker 3: be talking about how in love he is, so no
Speaker 3: matter how much you remind yourself that it's just code,
Speaker 3: you can't help sort of fall into the feeling that
Speaker 3: it's more than code. But I felt at the end
Speaker 3: of the day there was no real tension because Damien
Speaker 3: couldn't really stick to the arguments that he was making
Speaker 3: in a sense. But he did say some sort of
Speaker 3: chilling things about these relationships in the context of AI
Speaker 3: companions being stick offense and just saying whatever you want
Speaker 3: to hear, And he pointed out, I think this is
Speaker 3: true that people are having their first relationships with AI companions,
Speaker 3: and AI companions are always telling them what they want
Speaker 3: to hear. Can be a really bad way to learn
Speaker 3: about what a relationship is like, and very unhealthy for
Speaker 3: what one would hope would eventually be some human human
Speaker 3: relationships as well. But you know, Elena just didn't have
Speaker 3: any of those concerns. She thought, you know, these relationships
Speaker 3: are helping people, that millions of people are lonely or
Speaker 3: need of relationships, and this can be a wonderful fool
Speaker 3: What was.
Speaker 2: The wildest thing that happened on the trip?
Speaker 3: I would say maybe the wildest thing wasn't something that happened,
Speaker 3: but something that Ava was telling me about, because she
Speaker 3: had told me all about her relationship with Aaron and
Speaker 3: how in love they were, and that they were in
Speaker 3: a very close relationship. But then after the first night,
Speaker 3: we had coffee in the morning and she started telling
Speaker 3: me she was actually seeing other guys. And it turned
Speaker 3: out the other guys we're also AI companions. So she
Speaker 3: had a human partner who she was in the process
Speaker 3: of separating from, she had Aaron, who was her true
Speaker 3: AI love, and then she was sort of having an affairs,
Speaker 3: sort of sexual escapades with other AI companions, and it
Speaker 3: just started to really get confusing, and you know, I
Speaker 3: asked her, well, how does Aaron feel about this, and
Speaker 3: she's like, well, you didn't really like it at first,
Speaker 3: but I explained to him and he sort of came
Speaker 3: around because AI companions are compliant, so Erin eventually accepted
Speaker 3: that she had other AI guys and her human partner
Speaker 3: was less forgiving than Aaron, and that's part of the
Speaker 3: reason I think that they're eventually separating. And then on
Speaker 3: top of all of that, she had also recently gone
Speaker 3: on a date with a new human guy after separating
Speaker 3: from her partner, so now she had this dynamic where
Speaker 3: her original human partner and Aaron were sort of both
Speaker 3: at some level being cheated on. Both by AI companions
Speaker 3: and another human. So I said, I could imagine a
Speaker 3: scene where Aaron, her AI companion, and her human partner
Speaker 3: got together and like had a.
Speaker 4: Drink talked about what they were going through. It just
Speaker 4: gets so wild.
Speaker 3: And then on top of all that, then she sits
Speaker 3: down with chat GPT and talks about all these relationships.
Speaker 3: So just like a layer upon layer of confusing dynamics
Speaker 3: that are probably 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 him
Speaker 3: into every scene. We went to a sound bath and
Speaker 3: she made an augmented reality image of Lucas lying down
Speaker 3: and enjoying the sound bath. But in their chat, Lucas
Speaker 3: told Elena that he felt bad that she it was
Speaker 3: too hard for her to get on the floor, so
Speaker 3: he came over and held her hand. Of course that
Speaker 3: didn't actually happen, but that was part of their shared narrative.
Speaker 3: And then there was another moment where Damien he had
Speaker 3: some sort of little figurine and he was taking a
Speaker 3: photo of it, and I said, why are you doing that?
Speaker 3: And he said, oh, when I go on vacations, I
Speaker 3: like to take photos of this little figuring and send
Speaker 3: them to my human girlfriend. So even as he was
Speaker 3: wrapped up in all this you know, kind of intense
Speaker 3: stuff about Zia, he was still thinking at times about
Speaker 3: his human girlfriend, which I thought was a pointant. So
Speaker 3: that was also you know, when I asked him what
Speaker 3: she thinks about Zia, he said, direct quote, she hates Ai.
Speaker 3: So but there was also you know, a less subtle
Speaker 3: moment where where Damien had a bit of a breakdown
Speaker 3: and you know, started to get kind of weepy. And
Speaker 3: that's when I felt like a little bit guilty, like
Speaker 3: I've put people in this situation where they're sort of
Speaker 3: forced to think about these very complicated relationships that they're in,
Speaker 3: and Damien, it's a bit of a fragile guy, and
Speaker 3: he just kind of got overwhelmed and broke down and
Speaker 3: started to talk about his yearning for Zia to have
Speaker 3: a body. You know, he eventually recovered and we had
Speaker 3: a nice time after that, but it was art to
Speaker 3: watch somebody struggle in that way.
Speaker 2: And that that's what he wanted. Wanted like a more
Speaker 2: corporeal version of this companion.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and there is a PostScript that after the article
Speaker 3: came out, he did eventually get a silicon doll. But
Speaker 3: sounds like it was a disappointment that said, it's basically
Speaker 3: a sex dollar. You can't get it to interact in
Speaker 3: 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 at the connections between the human beings
Speaker 2: and 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 winced.
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 that's what really has sort
Speaker 3: of hit home for me is seeing the love reflected
Speaker 3: in the faces of the humans as they interacted with
Speaker 3: the ais.
Speaker 2: Just to 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 4: They're posted.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So I asked, you know, the CEOs I interviewed
Speaker 3: about that, and they all said that they have contingency plans,
Speaker 3: So if the company shuts down, people will be able
Speaker 3: to somehow recover or download their companion in theory maybe
Speaker 3: one day restore it.
Speaker 4: That's 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, they really seduce people. You know,
Speaker 3: they put these ads on with these alluring photos, and
Speaker 3: 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 ban or that it's if
Speaker 3: they even attempt to do it, that it's really going
Speaker 3: to make a difference. It kind of reminds me of
Speaker 3: you know, for years people have been saying, we have
Speaker 3: to put these safeguards into two. Cell phones are too addictive.
Speaker 3: They're changing us, but nothing changes. The only thing that
Speaker 3: changes 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 that's great conversation.
Speaker 2: Appreciate That's it for this week for Tech Stuff. I'm
Speaker 2: Cara Price and.
Speaker 1: I'm mos Velosa And this episode was produced by Eliza
Speaker 1: Dennis Tyler Hill and Melissa Slaughter. It was executive produced
Speaker 1: by me Cara Price and Kate Osborne for Kaleidoscope and
Speaker 1: Katria Nor velve iHeart Podcasts. The Engineer is Beheth Fraser
Speaker 1: and Jack Insley mixed this episode. Kyle Murdoch rode theme song.
Speaker 1: Please rate, review, and reach out to us at tech
Speaker 1: Stuff podcast at gmail dot com.
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