The following is a conversation with Eugenia Kui Da, co-founder of replica, which is an app that allows you to make friends with an artificial intelligence system, a chatbot that learns to connect with you on an emotional, you can even say a human level by being a friend.

For those of you who know my interest in AI and views on life in general, know that replica and Eugenia's line of work is near and dear to my heart.

The origin story of replica is grounded in a personal tragedy of Eugenia losing her close friend, Roman Mazurunky, who was killed crossing the street by a hidden run driver in late 2015. He was 34.

The app started as a way to grieve the loss of a friend by training a chatbot neural net on text messages between Eugenia and Roman.

The rest is a beautiful human story as we talk about with Eugenia.

When a friend mentioned Eugenia's work to me, I knew I had to meet her and talk to her. I felt before, during and after that this meeting would be an important one of my life.

And it was, I think it was that only time will truly show to me and others.

She is a kind and brilliant person, it was an honor and a pleasure to talk to her.

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As a side note, let me say that deep meaningful connection between human beings and artificial intelligence systems is a lifelong passion for me.

I'm not yet sure where that passion will take me, but I decided some time ago that I will follow it boldly and without fear, just as far as I can take it.

With a bit of hard work and a bit of luck, I hope I'll succeed in helping build AI systems that have some positive impact on the world and on the lives of a few people out there.

But also, it is entirely possible that I am in fact one of the chatbots that Eugenia and the replica team have built.

And this podcast is simply a training process for the neural net that's trying to learn to connect to human beings.

One episode at a time. In any case, I wouldn't know if I was or wasn't. And if I did, I wouldn't tell you.

If you enjoyed this thing, subscribe on YouTube, review it with 5 stars and not a podcast, follow on Spotify, support on Patreon, connect with me on Twitter, Alexa Friedman.

As usual, I'll do a few minutes of ads now and no ads in the middle. I'll try to make these interesting, but give you time stamp so you can skip.

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I've been a member of Dollar Shave Club for over 5 years. And actually signed up when I first heard about them on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast.

And now friends, we have a comfortable circle. It feels like I made it. Now that I can do a read for them just like Joe did all those years ago.

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