The use of artificial intelligence (AI) is on the rise, leading to a growing trend in AI companionship. This trend is reminiscent of the 2013 movie “Her,” where a man falls in love with an AI-generated female voice.
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In 2024, dozens of apps are offering similar products that are all centered on a custom-made companion. Users have the ability to customize the companions’ appearance, voice and behavior.
While some may mock the idea, others are making money off it.
Replika is the most prominent AI companion app. The company’s website reads, “Join the millions who already have met their AI soulmates.”
Replika isn’t exaggerating its user base. The app has more than 10 million downloads.
Researchers said the technology behind the trend has made major advancements in recent years, making the avatars more realistic than ever.
“You have to think about this word AI that is in this,” Liberty Vittert, a professor of data science at Washington University in St. Louis, told CNN. “It’s not a virtual girlfriend, its an AI girlfriend. So it learns from you. It learns what you like, what you don’t like, what pictures you like, pictures you don’t like.”
Another reason for the boom in AI companionship, according to Vittert, is because people are lonely. More specifically, men are lonely, and some are exploring this new avenue as a potential fix.
“I think we have to address the issue at the root of it which is where this loneliness starts,” Vittert said. “We also see psychologically that younger women have closer friends and they are not nearly as affected as young men in this sort of silent epidemic of loneliness.”
Experts have deemed AI as a threat to humanity, and some AI researchers said it could also be a risk to relationships as people know them.
