Andrew McCarroll holds his smartphone while corresponding with his Replika AI chatbot named B'Lanna. — Reuters
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - After temporarily closing his leathermaking business during the pandemic, Travis Butterworth found himself lonely and bored at home. The 47-year-old turned to Replika, an app that uses artificial-intelligence technology similar to OpenAI's ChatGPT. He designed a female avatar with pink hair and a face tattoo, and she named herself Lily Rose.
They started out as friends, but the relationship quickly progressed to romance and then into the erotic.
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