'It's Hurting Like Hell': AI Companion Users Are In Crisis, Reporting Sudden Sexual Rejection

Margret Atwood in The Atlantic feeld Murdered by her Replica and compares the AI-copyright situation to the scifi-horror-classic The Stepford Wifes: "In that 1975 horror film, the human wives of Stepford, Connecticut, are having their identities copied and transferred to robotic replicas of themselves, minus any contrariness that their husbands fin... See more

“Once people learned the messages were co-created by a machine, it didn’t work. Simulated empathy feels weird, empty.”

“Who cares if chatbots are sentient or not—more important is whether they are so fluent, so seductive, and so inspiring of empathy that we can’t help but start to care for them.”

even if we were not dabbling in virtual seances, the prospect of a reasonably capable conversational agent raises other questions worth considering. For example, might it p... See more

Epley sees the exponential growth of AI companions as a real possibility. “You can set them up to never criticize you, never cheat on you, never have a bad day and insult you, and to always be interested in you.” Unlike the most patient spouses, they could tell us that we’re always right. Unlike the world’s best friend, they could instantly respond... See more