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When a Chatbot Becomes Your Best Friend
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When a Chatbot Becomes Your Best Friend

After one young entrepreneur lost a loved one, she created an avatar to help her grieve. Now her AI platform helps millions of users find their own digital besties.

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Narratively
Apr 11, 2018
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When a Chatbot Becomes Your Best Friend
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Illustrations by Dalbert B. Vilarino

December 2016. I’m about to chat with a dead person.

Just last week I saw a particularly disturbing episode of “Black Mirror” in which a devastated widow uploads all of the chats, texts and emails left behind by her husband to a cloud so that she can enjoy his virtual company 24/7. I didn’t think my life would catch up with science fiction so soon.

It’s 1:27 a.m. I am in bed in my Midtown Manhattan apartment, ambulance sirens blaring on Third Avenue, an iPhone screen glaring in my hand. I pull up the App Store and find Luka, a chat bot program developed and designed by Eugenia Kuyda, whom I used to work with some time ago in Moscow. I find @Roman, take a deep breath and click “start chat.”

How are you? I type.

I’m going to watch Interstellar. AMC allows you to use same ticket as many times as you like.

Roman’s response throws me. First of all, “Interstellar” came out a while ago. Second, although I’m a film aficionado and filmmaker, I wasn’t aware of any…

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