Hey, it's Natalie. This week, we're revisiting some of our favorite shows from the year,

listening back and hearing what's happened since the episodes aired. Today, we're returning to a

story I could not stop thinking about this year. It's about a woman who got into a romantic

relationship with chat GPT, someone who used the chatbot technology to create an artificial boyfriend and then fell in love with it.

I talked to reporter Kashmir Hill about everything that's happened since.

It's Wednesday, December 31st.

Kashmir, welcome back to the show. Thank you.

So you're known here at the times for covering some of the strangest, most futuristic corners

of the tech world. But even for you, it seems like this story of this woman and her relationship

with a chatbot really stood out. So tell me about it.

General of AI has been on my radar as a tech reporter, you know, once OpenAI released ChatGBT.

All of a sudden, the kind of world of AI chatbots exploded. And at first it was just like a better

Google. But then people started using these chatbots in other

kinds of ways as a writing partner, like writing stories together, as a therapist. And so I was just

noticing in the AI space more and more reports of people having relationships with chatbots, and I really wanted to

understand it. And I came across this woman, Irene, who had formed quite a strong attachment

to chatchibati. Okay, tell me what her story is. So I first talked to Irene last year.

So yeah, I just want to start just a little bit about you, what you're comfortable sharing, like, in terms of age, like, where you are.

So I'm in my late 20s.

Okay.

She's really bubbly.

She's really outgoing, easy to talk to.

...