Noel King

But what about the people, and there are people, who think that their AI lovers are real, sentient, conscious?

That's coming up.

Hi, I'm Maria Sharapova, host of the Pretty Tough Podcast.

Each episode, I sit down with high-achieving women to discuss the pursuit of excellence without apology.

Why is this, it's still like burning inside of me that I feel like I am missing something.

I prayed so hard for my girl.

I prayed like every night, prayed, prayed, prayed.

And when I lost my babies, it was so hard.

So that when I had them, I thought that was going to be the thing.

Like I am finally getting the thing that I prayed for and it's going to fulfill me.

And this is everything I want and more.

And it was, but it was also something missing.

Lila Shapiro writes for New York Magazine, where she covers AI, among other things.

Lila recently wrote a story about a fight in a subreddit called My Boyfriend is AI.

Some people sort of view their AI companions as almost like a personalized, interactive romance novel.

As one of my sources makes the comparison, like Fifty Shades of Grey, it's just tailored exactly to her tastes.

And she's very aware that it's a...

computer program that she's interacting with.

But a big fissure within the community is that other people in the community don't see it that way at all and really believe that their companions are more than just a computer program, but actually some kind of like conscious entity with agency and ideas.

And that became a very like tense and divisive point inside the group.