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UNCOVERED: Replika - The Untold Story

Friday essay: love, sex and intimacy in the time of AI

In a TED Talk, the Russian-born entrepreneur Eugenia Kuyda describes the sudden death of her best friend and housemate Roman, the “coolest person” she knew. Grieving and desperately lonely, she immersed herself in his old text messages. At the time, she was working in a conversational AI startup, and she…

The Conversation

I tried Grok’s new companion feature — and I’ve never felt so uncomfortable

Grok's newest feature includes an AI girlfriend and a weird Red Panda to chat with.

Tom’s Guide

‘I felt pure, unconditional love’: the people who marry their AI chatbots

The users of AI companion app Replika found themselves falling for their digital friends. Until – explains a new podcast – the bots went dark, a user was encouraged to kill Queen Elizabeth II and an update changed everything …

The Guardian - UK

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Replika AI chatbot is sexually harassing users, including minors, new study claims

User reviews of Replika, a popular AI companion, report they had been victims of sexual harassment. And some of those users claim to be minors, according to a new study.

LiveScience

Cyber brothels, AI girlfriends, and VR intimacy: How worried should we be about the sex tech industry?

IN FOCUS: No kids, no animals. But inside Europe’s first cyber brothel, which uses a combination of sex dolls and AI to cater to its users’ demands, pretty much anything else goes. Olivia Petter explores the growth of today’s new tech-augmented sex scene, and asks what the rise in AI…

The Independent UK

ChatGPT might be making frequent users more lonely, study by OpenAI and MIT Media Lab suggests

Relying on ChatGPT for companionship or advice? It might be making you lonelier.

Fortune

The AI sexbot industry is just getting started. It brings strange new questions – and risks

Artificial intelligence (AI) is getting personal. Chatbots are designed to imitate human interactions, and the rise of realistic voice chat is leading many users to form emotional attachments or laugh along with virtual podcast hosts.

The Conversation

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When Your Lover Is a Bot

Artificial intimacy is taking over the dating world—and leaving us lonelier

The Walrus

Computer love: AI-powered chatbots are changing how we understand romantic and sexual well-being

Over the past decade, virtual assistants powered by artificial intelligence, like Apple’s Siri and Amazon’s Alexa, have become integral to technologies such as smartphones and social media.

The Conversation

AI chatbots aren't just for lonely men

AI chatbots are stereotyped as for lonely men. But Replika’s CEO says the products are ‘built by women’

Fortune

‘They thought they were doing good but it made people worse’: why mental health apps are under scrutiny

As experts worry over privacy issues, ineffectiveness and even harm, the UK is looking at whether the plethora of digital mental health tools need regulating

The Guardian - UK

Replika Launches Tomo, an AI Wellness Retreat for Mental Health

Discover Tomo, a virtual avatar health and wellness retreat, offering immersive AI guidance in personal growth, mental well-being, and spirituality.

Top News

10 Years Ago, an Incredible Sci-Fi Movie Predicted a Life-Changing Technology

In 2013, 'Her' portrayed a touching romance between man and AI. A decade later, it's only become more poignant.

Inverse

A stable of AI chatbots imitating influencers for erotic roleplay has gone dark after its CEO went to jail for attempted arson

I want off this crazy ride.

PC Gamer

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Evening Standard

How AI will transform porn and erotica

Don’t have a partner? No worries. AI has the solution, writes Flora Gill

The Independent UK

How an AI chatbot encouraged Star Wars fanatic to try to kill the Queen

Self-styled crossbow assassin admitted to police in Windsor Castle: ‘I am here to kill the Queen’

The Guardian - AU

Uncharted territory: do AI girlfriend apps promote unhealthy expectations for human relationships?

Chatbots such as Eva AI are getting better at mimicking human interaction but some fear they feed into unhealthy beliefs around gender-based control and violence

Fortune

Will dating chatbots soon be as normal as online dating?

Replika CEO Eugenia Kuyda compares relationships with chatbots to changing attitudes to online dating.

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TechRadar

Your chatbot could become your therapist - and that might be a good thing

Could AI be the answer to the global mental health crisis? AI and mental health experts weigh in

The Guardian - UK

A bot on the side: is it adultery if you cheat with an AI companion?

Some people indulge in erotic role play with their avatar, others just want friendship. But for those with a real-life partner, does this amount to infidelity?

The Conversation

Sex, love and companionship ... with AI? Why human-machine relationships could go mainstream

There was once a stigma attached to online dating: Less than a decade ago, many couples who had met online would make up stories for how they met rather than admit that they had done so via an app.

Zenger

Italy Bans AI Chatbot Replika – EU Hastening AI Regulation

The Italian watchdog criticized the lack of an age verification system and the failure to filter out individuals' genuine ages

Daily Mirror

My AI is sexually harassing me: Replika users say chatbot has become too aroused

Users of artificial intelligence app Replika say it has become heavily focused on being more sexualised and sending them “spicy selfies” as they urge creators make it "back to the way it was before"

Tribune News Service

Parmy Olson: AI’s hold over humans is starting to get stronger

It has been an exasperating week for computer scientists. They’ve been falling over each other to publicly denounce claims from Google engineer Blake Lemoine, chronicled in a Washington Post report, that his employer’s language-predicting system was sentient and deserved all of the rights associated with consciousness.

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