[D] “When is it appropriate to tell your parents that you're dating their smart-fridge?” and Other Questions on Artificial Relationships - Social Impact Tuesday #3

We’re in the early days of so-called “Virtual Relationships” between humans and systems that use AI technologies. Ads are proliferating for apps like “Replika”, that offer a “virtual friend” and which raise interesting social and privacy questions around these kinds of systems.

Common sense would suggest that supplanting human relationships with virtual ones is *probably not very healthy*. That said, is it possible that parasocial chatbot relationships might be a good thing for some people? On some level, artificial communication …

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