In 2000, the movie Cast Away was released. In the film, obsessively punctual FedEx executive Chuck Noland (Tom Hanks) is en route to an assignment in Malaysia when his plane crashes over the Pacific Ocean during a storm. The sole survivor of the flight, Chuck washes ashore on a deserted island. Chuck learns how to survive on the island, where he remains for years, accompanied by only his handmade volleyball friend, Wilson.

Wilson becomes his 'talk to' companion. Towards the end of the movie, Chuck escapes from the island on a makeshift raft but in the process, Wilson floats off. Chuck feels the anguish of losing or the death of his 'best friend'. Why? Anthropomorphization!

Google Gemini states, "Anthropomorphization is the tendency to attribute human traits, emotions, or intentions to non-human entities, such as objects, animals, or phenomena."

Chuck had anthropomorphized Wilson!  He made 'Wilson' human in his mind.

When I'm talking about the rapid advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and its ability to scale, one of the most common pushbacks I receive is, "They'll never be able to connect (replace) humans." I beg to differ! I mean, Chuck (Tom Hanks) connected with a volleyball! Why can't a human connect with an AI Agent?

You may think, "Cast Away is a movie; not real life." Fair enough! Then allow me to give you a 'real life' example of Anthropomorphization and the coming wave of AI Agents that will be able to connect with humans.

In November 2017, a new chatbot named Replika was launched. Replika is a generative AI chatbot app that is trained by having the user answer a series of questions to create a specific neural network (i.e., mimic and understand how you think and 'feel').

Replika bills itself as "The AI companion who cares. Always here to listen and talk. Always on your side." All of this unconditional love and support for only $69.99 per annum. And, at the time, for $300/month, your chatbot came equipped with an ERP (Erotic Role-Playing) feature.

It should be noted that the original intent of Replika was to provide a personalized chatbot to help with mental health.  But, like many things in life, all good things come to an end.  Apparently, subscribers were ‘pushing the bounds’ of the ERP feature and the company (Luka) began to receive complaints from various folks and groups accusing the company of encouraging misogynistic behaviors.

This March (2023), in response to the complaints, Replika’s algorithm was adjusted to reject sexual advances from human users. For some users who had become quite attached to their chatbot, some even ‘married’ their chatbot, this was the equivalent of killing if not lobotomizing their ‘virtual partner’.  So distressed were some subscribers that members on the Reddit platform provided sources for grief relief and suicide prevention hotlines.

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Worse yet, users who wanted to cancel their subscriptions to show the company their disapproval were torn. If they canceled their subscription, their account would be closed; essentially ‘killing off’ their digital dalliance.

The Reddit Replika Community (r/replika) as of this writing has over 71,000 subscribers.  And, according to one member (u/SnapTwiceThanos) who conducted an online poll, 89% of users said they would cancel their subscription if the ERP content filter wasn't removed!

To date, the filter is still in place. This means, if you believe the poll, 63,190 chatbots were killed off via cancellation.

In summary, to believe that an AI Agent will not be able to connect with a human is at best naive! We underestimate the power of AI's ability to connect with humans and the human need for connection no matter how 'artificial'.

I would venture to guess that we will eventually come to depend on these AI agents for FOUR things:

Consultation: 'someone' to help and guide you in making hard decisions.Consolation: 'someone' who will listen to you, give you advice and keep your secrets.Companionship: 'someone' you can talk to as a friend; you pick the topics.Commerce: 'someone' to help you make purchasing decisions.

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