This is Technology Ethics

9TECHNOLOGICAL FRIENDS, LOVERS, AND COLLEAGUES

9.1 Replikas, Chuck and Harmony, and Boomer

9.1 During the COVID‐19 pandemic more and more people started to look for alternative ways of making friends, since many people were in an enforced emergency lockdown. Some people explored the option of making digital friends. For example, lots of people started using a chatbot app called “Replika.” Replika is one of at least 20 chatbot apps that were commercially available at the time. In 2020, it had over seven million users. This is a chatbot app that uses AI techniques to “get to know” the user—and to also start to mirror the user's personality—so that the more you use the app, the more the app becomes similar to you in what it says as you are chatting with this bot.

9.2 Many users become emotionally attached to their Replika app, and many of them see their Replika as their friend. Some even say that they regard it as their best friend. Others find this app a little creepy. It reminds them of an episode of the TV series Black Mirror, which was called “Be right back.” In that episode, a woman named Martha loses her husband Ash and then uses an app similar to Replika to chat with him—an app that recreates his personality, so that she can talk with a chatbot that is like talking with her dead husband. This actually mirrors the origins of the real Replika app. The inventor of this app lost her best friend—who was killed when he was hit by a car while crossing a street—and then tried to ...