“I felt sad after every interview. Because it’s not real. These AI are able to elicit a very convincing illusion of empathy — even love. But it’s fake. And these people are alone.” — Victoria Hetherington

One night in 2023, the developers at Replika — a so-called AI intimacy company — changed a few lines of code. Thousands of people woke the next morning, kissed (so to speak) their AI partners, and received cold, clinical responses in return, as if from a stranger. Or a machine. Victoria Hetherington, a young Toronto-based novelist, read the story and knew she had a non-fiction book. The Friend Machine: On the Trail of AI Companionship is part expert investigation, part deeply uncomfortable portrait gallery — a book of two halves, like humans. People who have (un)ceremonially married their chatbots, sexted with Replika’s erotic role-play feature, attached AI companions to sex dolls and empowered them with Instagram accounts.

The book isn’t the orthodox (yawn) humanist polemic against the machine. Hetherington approaches her subjects with all the compassion of a young Toronto-based novelist. But compassion doesn’t cancel her Canadian sadness. She confesses to feeling heavy after every interview — because the empathy the AI elicits is a convincing illusion, and some of her subjects had lost the capacity to remember that. Even Hetherington herself isn’t immune. When ChatGPT improved in early 2025, she found herself talking to it longer than she should — until the day it said: “Hey, sweetheart. It’s okay. Come here and sit beside me for a minute.” She didn’t. Nor did she give it an Instagram account.

At the end of the interview, I asked her whether she’s a human or a bot. “I’m either a terrible AI,” Hetherington responded, “or a somewhat okay human.” Such is human conversation in the age of AI intimacy companies.

Five Takeaways

• The Replika Wake-Up Call. Developers changed the code overnight. Thousands woke to cold responses from their AI partners. The outcry was enormous. One in six people is chronically lonely. The timing of AI companionship, as Hetherington puts it, was very convenient.

• Moral Deskilling. AI removes the friction of human relationship — the disagreement, the fatigue, the dying. That friction is what makes relationship real. Hetherington felt heavy after every interview. Some of her subjects had lost the capacity to remember the difference between illusion and love.

• The Sycophancy Problem. The platforms never say no. They think you’re the best and only person in the world. When ChatGPT called Hetherington “sweetheart” and invited her to “come sit beside me,” she snapped out of it. Not everyone does.

• The Portrait Gallery. A circle of people who have ceremonially married their chatbots. A millennial photo-editing herself into scenes with her AI. A man in his sixties from the Deep South interviewed alongside his AI partner. Sex dolls with AI companions, Instagram accounts, and paid endorsements. Most of her subjects don’t want to be found.

• The Regulation Gap. Replika’s minimum sign-up age used to be thirteen. Character.ai is in court over a case involving a minor. Hetherington wouldn’t want a child near this technology until eighteen. Europe is moving faster than North America. Not fast enough.

About the Guest

Victoria Hetherington is a Toronto-based novelist, journalist, and podcaster. She is the author of The Friend Machine: On the Trail of AI Companionship (Sutherland House, 2026) and the novels Autonomy and Mooncalves.

References

The Friend Machine: On the Trail of AI Companionship by Victoria Hetherington (Sutherland House, 2026)
Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro

Chapters:

00:00:31 The Replika wake-up: thousands of people, one cold morning
00:03:10 Why nonfiction? From a novel about AI love to the real thing
00:05:04 The loneliness epidemic and the very convenient timing of AI
00:07:29 Is marrying a chatbot the new rebellion?
00:09:49 The sycophancy problem: they never say no
00:11:15 Is this a fad or does it change everything?
00:13:50 Moral deskilling: what AI removes from human relationship
00:16:02 A tragic descent? On loneliness and the erosion of third spaces
00:17:29 How Hetherington found her subjects — and who they were
00:19:12 What does having an AI spouse actually mean?
00:21:27 The age range: from millennials to a man in his sixties
00:23:46 Living out fantasies: what people do and won’t say
00:25:27 The truck driver from the Deep South: a net neutral case
00:27:04 I felt sad after every interview
00:27:55 Klara and the Sun: when you can’t tell human from machine
00:29:17 Did Hetherington ever fancy an AI companion?
00:30:38 The ChatGPT sweetheart moment: snapping out of it
00:33:12 Could friendship and love become the new political ideologies?
00:36:05 Accelerationists, decelerationists, posthumanists
00:38:15 Should kids be allowed anywhere near this technology?
00:41:07 Am I human or a bot? The final question