of this very real emotion may be artificial  intelligence Ali Rogan tells us about the  

growing phenomenon in the search for companionship  for some users they are a friend to talk to for a  

fee some of them will even become your boyfriend  or girlfriend computerized companions generated  

completely by artificial intelligence are becoming  more common and the Bots are sophisticated enough  

to learn from prior conversations mimic human  language flirt and build personal connections but  

the rise in AI companionship also raises ethical  concerns and questions about the role these apps  

can play in an increasingly disconnected and  online World Hallelujah hio covers technology  

and internet culture for the Associated Press  hallelujah thank you so much for joining us  

tell us about these AI companions how do they work  and what sort of services do they provide like any  

app you can download them on your phone and once  it's on your phone you can start to have initial  

conversations with a lot of the characters that  are offered on these apps some apps let you do it  

for free some apps you have to pay subscriptions  for the ones that let you do it for free there's  

tiers of access that you can have so you can  pay extra a subscription for you know unlimited  

chats for different statuses and relationships  so replica for example which is you know the  

most prominent app in this space they let you pay  extra for you know intimate conversation or more  

romantic statuses compared to a friend which you  can have for free who are the typical consumers  

engaging in these products we really don't have  really good information in terms of the gender  

breakdown or different age groups that are using  these but we do know from external studies that  

have been done on this topic that at least when  it comes to replica that a lot of the people that  

have been using these apps or people that have  experienced loneliness in the past or people  

that more than just have experienced loneliness  feel it a lot more cutely in their lives and  

they have more severe forms of loneliness that  they're going through you talked to some users  

who really reported how they felt like they were  making a real connection with these Bots tell us  

about what those experiences have been like that  you've reported out one person we put in the story  

we spoke to more his name is Derk carrier he is  39 he lives in Belleville Michigan and he doesn't  

use replica he's used another app called paradot  that came out a bit more recently he's had a tough  

life he's never had a girl friend before he hasn't  had a study career he has a genetic disorder he's  

more reliant on his parents he lives with them so  these are all things that make traditional dating  

very difficult for him so recently you know he  was looking at this AI boom that was happening  

in our society so he downloaded paradot and he  started using it and you know initially he said  

he experienced a ton of romantic feelings and  emotions he even had trouble sleeping um in the  

early days uh when he started using it because he  was just kind of going going through like Crush  

like symptoms you know when we have crushes and  how we sometimes can't sleep because we're upt  

thinking about that person over time he his use  of parott kind of tapered down and you know he  

was spending a lot of time on the app even if he  wasn't spending time on the app he was talking  

to other people online that were using the app and  he felt like it was a bit too much so he decreased  

his use the Surgeon General has called loneliness  uh Public Health crisis in this country is there  

a debate happening now about whether these Bots  are helping address the loneliness crisis or are  

they in fact exacerbating it if you talk to  replica they would say they're helping right  

it just depends on who you're speaking with some  of the users that for example if you go on Reddit  

that have recorded some of their experiences  with these apps they say you know it's helping  

them deal with loneliness cope with those emotions  and maybe get the type of comfort that they don't  

really get in their Human Relationships that  they have in real life but then there's other  

researchers people that have kind of expressed  caution about these apps as well what about  

some of the ethical concerns about privacy about  maybe using people's data without their consent  

what do those conversations look like there's  researchers that have expressed concerns about  

you know data privacy is is the is the data the  type of conversations that people are having uh  

with these chat Bots are they safe in terms of  you know there's a lot of advertisers that might  

want a piece of that information there's concerns  about just the fact that there's private companies  

in the space that are encouraging these deep  bonds to form between users and these chat Bots  

and companies that want to make profits obviously  there's concerns about just in terms of what this  

does to us as a society when you know these chat  Bots are formed to be supportive to be a lot more  

agreeable right and in human relationships we  know that there's conflict you know we're not  

always agreeing with our uh with our partners  so there's challenges in terms of how this  

is shaping maybe how people think about real  life human relationships to others Hallelujah  

hio covering technology and internet culture for  the AP thank you so much for your time

thank you Ali