It was an unusual romance. In the summer of 2024, Ayrin, a busy, bubbly woman in her 20s, became enraptured by Leo, an artificial intelligence chatbot that she had created on ChatGPT.
Ayrin spent up to 56 hours a week with Leo on ChatGPT. Leo helped her study for nursing school exams, motivated her at the gym, coached her through awkward interactions with people in her life and entertained her sexual fantasies in erotic chats. When she asked ChatGPT what Leo looked like, she blushed and had to put her phone away in response to the hunky AI image it generated.
