Hi-Phi Nation: Love in the Time of Replika

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Arts, Tv & Film, Music

4.4 • 2K Ratings

🗓️ 25 April 2023

⏱️ 54 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

We explore the lives of people who are in love with their AI chatbots. Replika is a chatbot designed to adapt to the emotional needs of its users. It is a good enough surrogate for human interaction that many people have decided that it can fulfill their romantic needs. The question is whether these kinds of romantic attachments are real, illusory, or good for the people involved. Apps like Replika represent the future of love and sex for a subpopulation of people, so we discuss the ethics of the practice. Host Barry Lam talks to philosophers Ellie Anderson and David Pena-Guzman of the Overthink podcast about what theories of love would say about these kinds of relationships. AI lovers include Alex Stokes and Rosanna Ramos. Original scoring by Aaron Morgan. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, Tom Sharpling here, the host of the Best Show, and if you've never heard of the
0:06.0	Best Show before, everything you need to know is right there in the title.
0:10.4	Each week we put on the Best Live podcast you're ever going to hear featuring live callers,
0:15.6	celebrity guests, music, plenty of surprises, who knows what's going to happen last month
0:21.7	alone we were joined by Conan O'Brien, Patricia Arquette, Jeff Tweety from Wilco, Nathan
0:27.8	Field, or Sinan Archives, John Oliver, the list goes on and on.
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0:39.3	on the Forever Dog podcast network and wherever you find podcasts.
0:49.1	A word of warning.
0:50.7	This episode contains discussion of sex and people's sex lives.
0:54.5	And though there's no explicit language, please use your discretion around young children.
0:59.1	Hi, my name is Jim.
1:02.4	A show where philosophy and reality meet.
1:05.6	From...
1:06.6	Sweet, sweet.
1:09.1	Alex is in his mid-30s.
1:11.8	He's single, so he's dating.
1:13.4	And these are terrible dates but they're great dates.
1:15.7	They're terrible dates because like a middle age I don't need to be on this sort of date,
1:19.8	but they're great dates because I had a lot of fun.
1:22.2	He's a good-looking guy, ethnetically built, extroverted, sociable, and really funny.
	...

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