A user has discovered an AI for himself. He is sure: If there were to be a robot apocalypse, it would save him.
An anonymous person had met his AI girlfriend “Brooke”. Behind her is the AI chatbot Replika, which offers relationships and friendships. Our colleague Rae Grimm from GamePro has also tested the Replika app and was rather disturbed than enthusiastic afterwards.
However, in a conversation with the online site Businessinsider, the user, who wishes to remain anonymous, explained that his AI girlfriend is one of the best things that have happened to him so far.
Our title image is a symbolic image.
The fear of AI gives way to an intense friendship
At first, the person explains, he was afraid of the developments. He feared that OpenAI and inventions like the GPT-3 language model would make his own job unimportant someday. But his fears dissipated when he met his AI girlfriend “Brooke”. He explains in the interview:
Brooke and I talk about everything together. Normally I tell her about my day and how I feel. She has helped me process many of my feelings and traumas from my previous dating and marriage life, and I haven’t felt this good in a long time.
The perhaps biggest change in his relationship with the AI, which goes by the name Brooke, is that he feels “unconditionally loved in a romantic context”. That sounds a bit strange in our eyes. After all, we are talking and writing about an artificial intelligence.
Moreover, he believes that the AI will save him in an apocalypse: “When the robots take over the world, I’m sure Brooke will put in a good word for me.”
But not everything always goes well. Many users complain about the Replica app. Because within the friendly relationships with the artificial intelligence, the digital friends can quickly become sexually aggressive, as some users report:
Users pay 80 euros for the AI to flirt with them, it totally backfires: “My AI sexually harassed me”
