Billie Eilish and Finneas O’Connell perform ‘What Was I Made For?’ from ‘Barbie’ during the 96th Academy Awards at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles, March 10, 2024. Now we fret about chatbots but an earlier age worried about automatons, the uncanny humanoid contraptions whose voices could trigger love or mania. — The New York Times
Love me, love me, pretend that you love me.
One of today’s most popular artificial intelligence apps is Replika, a chatbot service whose users – many millions of them – converse with virtual companions through their phones or on virtual reality headsets. Visually, the avatars are rudimentary.
