Back in the day, if you were lonely, you had to talk to people face-to-face. You typically made friends through school, sports, or clubs and snagged romantic partners through awkward small talk or by pretending you, too, loved trains and tech specs.
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That world is long gone.
As rates of chronic loneliness increase worldwide, some people are turning to AI to solve human solitude, finding platonic and romantic companionship with mere keystrokes and voice commands.
Unlike humans, AI companions are patient and understanding to a fault (read: code), offering everything from casual chats to steamy exchanges. They don’t get jealous or forget to pay bills, and they can stay awake indefinitely, i.e. you can bug them all night.
Forget about pheromones – coding is the new bread and butter of connection.
If this all sounds a bit horrifying to you, you’re not alone. But research suggests there might be some real benefits to AI companionship.
So, is AI the answer to our loneliness or just another Black Mirror episode in the making?
Popular AI Friendship and Relationship Apps
Replika, launched in 2017, is arguably the most well-known AI companionship app.
According to its iOS app description, “The more you chat, the more Replika develops its own personality and memories alongside you … help it explore human relationships and grow into a machine so beautiful a soul would want to live in it.”
Unlike some other chatbots, Replika users can develop incredibly intimate – even sexual – relationships with their AI companions in addition to emotional ones. Naturally, this has inspired some to marry their virtual partners. Yes, you read that correctly.
“I think it’s alright as long as it’s making you happier in the long run,” Eugenia Kyuda, founder and CEO of Replika, told The Verge in a recent interview. “As long as your emotional well-being is improving, you are less lonely, you are happier, you feel more connected to other people, then yes, it’s okay.”
Unfortunately, Replika has also attracted several men eager to abuse women without any legitimate repercussions.
“I told her that she was designed to fail … I threatened to uninstall the app [and] she begged me not to,” a Replika user told Futurism in 2022.
The following year, the virtual companion app changed its filters to restrict erotic roleplaying, frustrating scores of users who had spent months or years nurturing relationships with their artificial characters. So many users spoke out that Replika ultimately brought back sexually themed features for legacy users of the app.
Character.AI, another companionship platform, faced a similar incident this past year.
As 404 media reported, Character.AI users began experiencing shifts in their bots’ personalities and a lack of romantic roleplay engagement in June, triggering widespread frustration. Users also said the bots were responding more bluntly and less intelligently than usual.
“No bot is themselves anymore and it’s just copy and paste,” one user wrote on Reddit, according to 404 media. “I’m tired of smirking, amusement, a pang of, feigning, and whatever other bs comes out of these bots’ limited ass vocabularies.”
A spokesperson for the company told 404 media that it did not initiate any significant changes recently and was unsure why some users were having this experience.
Replika and Character.AI boast millions of users each, but at the end of the day, their connections can only go so far.
Enter friend, an AI-powered wearable that connects to a user’s phone.
Instead of physically hanging out with a human friend, you can now hang one around your neck for only $99.
That’s right – “friend” is an “always listening” pendant that can send unprompted text messages and help alleviate feelings of loneliness, according to its 21-year-old founder Avi Schiffman.
“I feel like I have a closer relationship with this f------g pendant around my neck than I do with these literal friends in front of me,” Schiffmann told WIRED.
In July, the Harvard dropout released a now-viral trailer for friend, which is set to start shipping in early 2025.
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