Joel Pearson

It was actually around before sort of 2022 when the sort of generative AI boom happened.

And in adults, we've seen people having multi-year deep loving relationships, marriage ceremonies.

When they tweak the algorithm for replica to actually pull it back and make it less sexual, thousands, if hundreds of thousands of people complained that they'd lost a loved one.

They got depressed.

They got anxious.

They said their relationship got dissolved and they begged them to turn it back to where it was.

Now we have this sort of range of character AI and all these other companion apps, which are pretty much designed for young people.

And we're seeing, I think the data was like 50% of young people in the US are using them daily.

It's different in different countries and for hours every day.

Yeah, talk about comfort versus discomfort.

Exactly.

Yep.

Yeah.

And it,

We don't know a lot about how this is going to affect young people.

But like you're saying, there's no awkwardness.

And you could say, yeah, well, there's a loneliness pandemic at the moment, so it's helping with that.

But is it really?

You can also argue that loneliness is, the pain of loneliness is a powerful signal that's useful because people do better when they're socializing.

So you don't want to kill that signal.