#121 – Eugenia Kuyda: Friendship with an AI Companion

Eugenia Kuyda co-founder of Replika, an AI companion. Please check out our sponsors to get a discount and to support this podcast:
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Episode links:
Eugenia’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/ekuyda
Replika’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/myreplika
Replika’s Website: https://replika.ai

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Here’s the outline of the episode. On some podcast players you should be able to click the timestamp to jump to that time.

OUTLINE:
00:00 – Introduction
06:18 – Loneliness
13:54 – Can AI alleviate loneliness?
18:13 – Love
20:49 – Russia in the 1990’s
31:47 – Chernobyl
41:35 – Communism
49:21 – Losing a friend
57:55 – Mortality
1:10:41 – Replika origin story
1:59:37 – Bringing people back to life with AI
2:05:37 – Relationship with Replika
2:18:27 – Can you form a connection with text alone?
2:27:45 – Does an AI companion need a body?
2:30:20 – Her
2:37:24 – GPT-3 for conversation
2:43:48 – We should be nice to AI
2:46:52 – Book recommendations
2:53:45 – Russian language
2:58:41 – Meaning of life