The interaction with AI ‘companions’ is far more immersive now, and how we deal with it will shape the precariousness of our lives

By Pramod K Nayar

Chatbot-maker Replika’s CEO Eugenia Kuyda declared in a 2024 interview: the most important thing is that Replika becomes a complement to your social interactions, not a substitute. The best way to think about it is just like you might a pet dog. That’s a separate being, a separate type of relationship, but you don’t think that your dog is replacing your human friends. It’s just a completely different type of being, a virtual being.

The advantage to having an AI companion, she said, was that it would never be mean, unlike your human friend, and that the purpose of Replika was to ‘give a little bit of love to everyone out there’. She then sa

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