Meet the Artificially Intelligent Therapist with Eugenia Kuyda

Do you have good friendships? Could an AI be a better friend than a human? This AI's goal is to help you grow and be the best you can be.

About this Conversation

We all need someone to talk to, perhaps now more than ever, and it turns out the closest to being honest with ourselves is when we are talking to a bot.

Eugenia Kuyda, the founder of Replika the AI friend, has proclaimed that her goal is to "create a machine beautiful enough that a soul would want to live in it".

Eugenia Kuyda

Eugenia Kuyda created Replika as a personal AI after her best friend died. She tried to recreate him, and it helped her get to know herself better... She has said "Replika is a place where you're exploring your personality and creating a digital footprint of it."

Replika offers a space where you can safely and openly share your thoughts, feelings, beliefs, experiences, memories, dreams – your “private perceptual world." Those who talk to a Replika have claimed the helpful, reflective conversation has made them better people.

Why tune in?

In April 2020, during the height of the pandemic, half a million people downloaded Replika, and many say it has helped them through the hard times to become their best selves. The Artificially Intelligent friend 'holds space for you', and it has been relate to the experience of talking to a therapist. But what about AI replacing human interaction? And at what cost?

"When social isolation became the norm, they helped deal with the loneliness, some users say." - Cade Metz, New York Times

The moments of vulnerability Kuyda said are excluded from the social media landscape are exactly what people share with Replika, and she believes it can help us navigate with human to human relationships.

Meet Replika, "the AI companion who cares".