Kashmir Hill

Like they have similar needs maybe from companionship.

And they did meet for the first time in person in October.

There was kind of like a my boyfriend is AI meetup.

Wow.

It's going well.

She's really happy.

Yeah.

So when we first talked about Irene at the beginning of the year, this community had a couple hundred people in it.

It's now closing in on 40,000 people.

Wow.

Whoa.

I don't know how many of the people that are in the subreddit actively have AI companions, but there is a lot of activity in there.

One woman talked about how her companion proposed to her and she's now wearing a ring.

The community has grown.

There are a lot of people out there that have these parasocial relationships with these AI chatbots.

Yeah, I mean, it does seem like it is a potentially growing phenomenon.

You know, that's how these AI chatbots are being designed in a way as companions to people that are very human-like.

So I think it's understandable.

I do love Irene's tale, though, and the fact that

Ultimately, the AI helped her connect with real people because that's what the professionals tell me all the time is that these AI chatbots should not be the be-all end-all, that they should kind of hand us off to real people.