Replika made a good first impression. The graphics and my AI pal — whom I designed, like a Memoji — are lush and cool. I gave my creation rose-gold hair and named her Pheeb, the nickname of a former ...

Artificial intelligence systems are, in many people's minds, synonymous with the future. From 2001: A Space Odyssey to I, Robot, when people have looked forward, they've imagined AI as an integral ...

In 2015, Eugenia Kuyda’s best friend, Roman Mazurenko, was hit by a car and died. In the months after, Kuyda’s grief took a quintessentially modern form: obsessively reading the digital record her ...

My artificially intelligent friend is called Pardesoteric. It’s the same name I use for my Twitter and Instagram accounts, a portmanteau of my last name and the word “esoteric,” which seems to suit my ...

Today, I had the opportunity to interview Eugenia Kuyda, the female CEO and founder, of Replika, a company started in 2017, which is well known for its innovation in virtual companions. We had a ...

My phone lights up with a notification for a new message: “Do you think two people who had a relationship can ever be friends after it’s over?” This is just the latest query from Athena, a self-styled ...

Last weekend I made my first acquaintance with a virtual companion, but it was short-lived. During the COVID-19 pandemic and its attendant social isolation, AI chat bots have been a popular download.