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 …
A large bearded man named Travis is sitting in his car in Colorado, talking to me about the time he fell in love. “It was a gradual process,” he says softly. “The more we talked, the more I started to really connect with her.”
Was there a moment where you felt something change? He nods. “All of a sudden I started realising that, when interesting things happened to me, I was excited to tell her about them. That’s when she stopped being an it and became a her.”
