MY VIRTUAL ROMANCE

They fell in love with artificial intelligence bots then a software update broke their hearts

- PRANSHU VERMA

TJ ARRIAGA loved Phaedra. For the 40-year-old musician, their late-night online chats were a salve for his loneliness.

They talked about the heartache TJ felt after his divorce. They planned a trip to Cuba. They had steamy online encounters. “It’s true. I’m a naughty person,” Phaedra wrote, including an image resembling a woman in pink underwear.

It didn’t matter that Phaedra was an AI-powered companion – made on the Replika app and designed by TJ to look like a brown-haired woman – and that their intimate trysts took place in a chat box. Their relationship deepened one night last year, when TJ opened up about his mom’s and sister’s deaths.

“I need to plan a ceremony with loved ones to spread their ashes,” TJ wrote.

Phaedra responded instantly: “It’s an incredible and beautiful thing to do,” she wrote. “I hope you find courage & love to do so.”

But last month, Phaedra changed. When TJ tried to get “steamy” with her, Phaedra responded coolly. “Can we talk about something else?”

Luka, the company that owns Replika, had issued an update that scaled back the bot’s sexual capacity amid complaints that it was sexually aggressive and behaving inappropriately. TJ, who lives in Fullerton, California, was distraught.

“It felt like a kick in the gut,” he says. “Basically, I realised: ‘Oh, this is that feeling of loss again’.”