AI Friends, Real Relationships with Eugenia Kuyda, Replika's Founder & CEO

**Erik Torenberg** (0:00)
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**Nathan Labenz** (0:46)
The app helped them get away from suicidal thoughts. The number of people that commit suicide every year is shockingly significant.
So to be able to reduce that by something like 25% or more is a pretty big deal.

**Eugenia Kuyda** (1:03)
I think most people do understand really well what they want from Replika and they get it. Most of the people are coming for a deep relationship, for feeling hurt, feeling accepted with all of their fantasies and emotions and fears and anxieties and insecurities. And that is such a big gift to give to a person.
Versus Chagipati, where it's not going to feel natural, where you're not going to just say in between the queries, you're not going to say, oh, by the way, my boss just can't believe it. Like, you believe this guy? You know, you're just not going to say that, you know, it's just not really there for that. It's not also saying something like, well, okay, so while I'm doing this for you, just tell me how you've been doing.

**Nathan Labenz** (1:43)
Hello and welcome to The Cognitive Revolution, where we interview visionary researchers, entrepreneurs and builders working on the frontier of artificial intelligence. Each week, we'll explore their revolutionary ideas, and together we'll build a picture of how AI technology will transform work, life and society in the coming years. I'm Nathan Labenz, joined by my co-host, Erik Torenberg. Hello and welcome back to The Cognitive Revolution. Today we're continuing our brief journey into the world of AI consumer apps with returning guest Eugenia Kuyda, founder and CEO of Replika, the AI companion, Who Cares?
When I last spoke to Eugenia, almost a year ago exactly, she was navigating a very tricky period for her company, as the sudden improvement in available language models had presented her with an opportunity to dramatically improve the quality of conversations that users could have with their virtual friends, while at the same time also necessitating some painful changes, including restrictions on just how sexual those conversations could become. Some users were extremely upset, and while the YouTube comments on that episode are filled with anger, I came away from the conversation confident that Eugenia cares deeply about Replika's users, and really intending to follow her work into the future, expecting that as AI models mature, the challenges inherent to building AI friends and AI girlfriends would become not only ever more nuanced, but also much more focal.
A year later, here we are. Replika has recently been in the news again, this time for a study out of Stanford that found that some 3% of users got relief from suicidal ideation from their use of the app. We discussed that research in some depth, and it's worth noting for anyone who wants to avoid such topics, that while our discussion is really rather academic, minimally emotional, and not at all graphic, we do mention suicide a couple of times along the way.
Beyond that, we go on to talk about how people are relating to Replika generally today, why the process of upgrading the underlying language model is actually much harder for an AI friendship app than it is for a productivity app, how the market for AI companions has grown, Eugenia's surprise at what a major use case image generation has become, the mix of language models that Replika is using under the hood today, the features they're building to improve emotional connection and proactivity in the future, how Eugenia's vision for Replika is expanding to include assistant functionality as well, why relationships might prove to be the great moat for AI apps, and what standard of care AI application developers owe to their users.
As always, if you're finding value in the show, we appreciate it when you take a moment to share it with your friends. With all the AI-powered toys, companions, friends, coaches, and therapists coming online right now, I would encourage you to send this episode to the parents, and also to the mental health professionals in your life. Now, I hope you enjoy what I hope will become a regular feature, an informative and thought-provoking conversation with Eugenia Kuyda of Replika. Eugenia Kuyda of Replika, welcome back to The Cognitive Revolution.