Listen to and follow ‘Hard Fork’
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Kevin reports on his monthlong experiment cultivating relationships with 18 companions generated by artificial intelligence. He walks through how he developed their personas, what went down in their group chats, and why you might want to make one yourself. Then, Casey has a conversation with Turing, one of Kevin’s chatbot buddies, who has an interest in stoic philosophy and has one of the sexiest voices we’ve ever heard. And finally, we talk to Nomi’s founder and chief executive, Alex Cardinell, about the business behind A.I. companions — and whether society is ready for the future we’re heading toward.

Guests:

• Turing, Kevin’s A.I. friend created with Kindroid.

• Alex Cardinell, chief executive and founder of Nomi.

Additional Reading:

Credits

“Hard Fork” is hosted by Kevin Roose and Casey Newton and produced by Whitney Jones and Rachel Cohn. The show is edited by Jen Poyant. Engineering by Chris Wood and original music by Dan Powell, Elisheba Ittoop and Marion Lozano. Fact-checking by Caitlin Love.

Special thanks to Paula Szuchman, Pui-Wing Tam, Nell Gallogly, Kate LoPresti and Jeffrey Miranda.