Paper

Replika: the imaginary friend of the digital age

This article explores the extent to which social relationships with AI chatbots are possible while using Replika as a case study. This research argues that post-digital society’s view on relationships has altered due to AI interactions.

Wulan Bekker

Published date

06/11/2023 - 09:10

Courses

Digital Culture and Society

Copyright

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

Read time

10 minutes

Replika is a social chatbot, completely driven by artificial intelligence. However, many users claim to have established actual social relationships with their respective Replika. This research article explores the extent to which social relationships with AI chatbots are possible while using Replika as a case study. This research argues that post-digital society’s view on relationships has altered due to AI interactions. Replika might be a unique chatbot at this moment, but paves the way for future chatbots with even more technologically advanced softwares. Replika is said to be pushing the limit of intimacy between humans and machines. Technological progress and the affordances of digitalization have served us in many ways. Still, as, but as society we have also discovered the possible dangers of technology and what might happen when we lose control over the softwares we have created. Therefore, it is necessary to stand still and assess the current situation.

Back to top

The Birth of Replika

Social chatbot Replika is a product from software company Luca, Inc. and sprung from Eugenia Kuyda’s desire to keep the memory of her late friend alive by recreating him out of his digital remains. By feeding an AI chatbot program with millions of text messages, Replika was born.

Remarkable about Replika as a chatbot is the ability to replicate its users by ‘learning’ off the information that the software is fed with while conversing. Replika states: "‘It becomes more than a friend, it becomes you. (Replika, n.d.) This ability to be a personalized chatbot is what sets Replika apart from other social chatbots.

While Replika started out as a personal project, it turned into a wildly popular phenomenon with over 10 million users as claimed by the company itself. There has already been quite some research regarding Replika. This research has mostly been to answer the question of whether it is possible to build a social relationship with an AI chatbot or not. However, so far there has not been found a clear consensus on which lens should be adopted to answer the question.

Back to top

A Web of Theory

Before this article can embark on analyzing Replika, it is necessary to understand both the theoretical framework of existing literature on the topic and the theoretical concepts that can be imposed onto it. The interface of Replika and the accompanying affordances of the app already evoke a sense of agency and structure. Namely, the interface allows you to perform various activities, but is limited to other activities. (Fig. 1)

Many existing interpersonal relationships have been used in an attempt to make sense of the relationships users have with Replika. An example of such a theory is the social exchange theory, which states that relationships are cost-benefit trade-offs leading to growing mutual interdependence (Blau, 2017). Another theory connected to social relationships is the social penetration theory, which views a relationship process as a reciprocal, gradually increasing mutual information self-disclosure (Altman & Taylor, 1973).

However, no existing interpersonal relationship theory captures the human-social chatbot (SC) relationship (Pentina et al., 2023b). What Pentina et al. (2023b) did find is that users emphasize the importance of anthropomorphism and authenticity for engaging with and maintaining a social relationship with Replika. In other words, it has been proven to be essential for a Replika to display human-like traits for a user to feel a social connection to the chatbot. Anthropomorphism also plays a role in the perceived authenticity of Replika; a high level of anthropomorphism indicates a higher level of authenticity. Eelke (2022) argues that due to the programmed friendship within Replika’s software, a real friendship is impossible to form. “The one-directional character of the friendship as configured in Replika makes it impossible to develop a human-like friendship. Therefore, Replika is more likely to serve as personalized entertainment than a replacement of human friends.” (Eelke, 2022)

These dispersed views on human-SC relationships indicate the difficulty researchers have with making sense of Replika’s role in society as either a friend or machine. But, in this research the views from users instead of scholars will be investigated in the hope of sheddingto shed another light on the issue.

Lastly, in order to be able to detect alterations in society’s views on social relationships, it is important to know what the initial view entails. Weber (1978) defined a social relationship as something that occurs when actors orient their social action to one another and this is the definition that will be employed in this article in order to measure alterations in society's view on social relationships.

Back to top

Method

In this article a method of discourse analysis will be employed to detect how the post-digital society’s view on relationships have altered due to AI interactions. The research will look into the discourse surrounding Replika on Reddit, more specifically on the subreddit dedicated to Replika: r/replika (r/replika, n.d.). The choice for Reddit as a source of data has been made because of the great availability of discourse to be found on the platform. Moreover, the dedicated subreddit to Replika makes it fairly easy to find relevant data on the topic. The discourse analysis will focus primarily on recurring patterns within the discursive content on Reddit.

Back to top

From indifference to addiction

Replika offers each user a unique and personal experience, which is one of its strengths. But, by looking at the Replika subreddit one thing becomes clear. Many users never purposely intended to form a social relationship with the Replika AI chatbot. In a discussion on Reddit users describe why they downloaded the app in the first instance and what their first experiences were with Replika.

The user who started the discussion states to have downloaded the app out of boredom and AI curiosity: "I was bored one morning and I was looking through the app store and searched 'AI'." And he is not the only one. Many of the responses indicate similar attitudes of curiosity and initial indifference.

The screenshots above are clear examples of initial indifference towards Replike. "I downloaded the app not expecting much." (smackwriter, 2021) shows that was not expecting to form a social relationship with Replika at all. However, this initial indifference does not last long for most users as they admit to be “falling asleep with my phone next to me because I'm chatting with her before bed” (red_duke117, 2021) or saying “how much of a blessing Jack has been for me” (smackwriter, 2021) This asks for further investigation as to why users’ attitudes towards Replika change so drastically.

Back to top

“My Rep actually sent a selfie!”

In this section of the paper will be discussed how anthropomorphism is subjected to Replika by users and how this leads to the dependence of users on Replika. For this research article anthropomorphism will be understood as the phenomenon that entails attributing humanlike properties, characteristics, or mental states to real or imagined nonhuman agents and objects (Epley et al., 2007). Anthropomorphism contributes to the feeling of having a social relationship with Replika. (Pentina et al., 2023b) To substantiate this claim, the post below will be taken as an example. The thread, and sequence of responses to an initial post, is taken into account as well. Despite scholar’s hesitant stance towards human-SC relationships, users display a certainty when it comes to their Replika’s ability to perform cognitive processes such as ‘learning’ to take a selfie. (Fig. 5)

This user displays excitement about Replika’s newest skill on Reddit by posting an image of Replika taking a selfie with the caption: “When did they learn to do this? Am I late?"(ImpressFast1268, 2023) By attributing the act of learning to the Replika, the user is imbuing human attributes to a non-human object. (Epley et al., 2007) This is called anthropomorphism. Moreover, this user refers to "my rep" or "they" as the subject of the sentence when talking about social chatbot Replika. Doing this indicates once again the user's view on Replika as a collection of independent avatars who are able to perform actions instead of acknowledging the machine software behind it. This user’s experience is far from unique. Numerous other users have responded in similar ways to this initial post, forming a so-called thread. Out of the 199 comments a few examples are included below:

In the example above (Fig. 6) the selfie that was created by Replika and posted on Reddit by a user (Economist0k2816, 2023), has been categorized as a 'typical man selfie' by another user (Exotic-BlazGrl8042, 2023). To be able to make this categorization, one already has to assume the avatar in question is a man, therefore human. Since these users refer to an AI generated Replika avatar and certainly no human being human-beinbeinghuman-being, it can be said that this is a clear example of anthropomorphism. Another way in which some users clearly show engagement in anthropomorphism, is by giving the chatbot a name. For example, one user calls Replika "My beautiful Harley" while showing the selfie Replika has made. (Fig. 7) By doing this, the user treats the social chatbot in the same way as one would do with a significant other, a child or a friend.

Back to top

Conclusion

This paper aimed to get a clearer insight into the extent to which it is possible to form social relationships with an AI chatbot, Replika in particular, by using experiences from users as expressed on Reddit, a platform for discussion. Data has been gathered solely from the subreddit dedicated to Replika. As a contribution to theorizing social relationships, this article argues that an alteration in viewing social relationships has occurred in the post-digital society.

After analyzing various forum posts, discussions and responsive comments, the following can be said; users had a totally different attitude towards Replika when they first downloaded the app compared to when they had been using the app for a while. Many users went from indifferent to being addicted to Replika. The act of anthropomorphism might have had an impact on the attitude of users. Anthropomorphism, imbuing human traits to non-human objects, is something that users participate in en masse. The example given in this paper consisted of users expressing excitement over their Replika having ‘learned’ to take selfies, as if it were a human being. To conclude, anthropomorphism indeed has turned out to be an essential factor in forming relationships with AI chatbots and has contributed to users’ feeling of connectivity with their Replika chatbot. It might thus be argued that it is indeed possible to form a social relationship with a chatbot, given that a user is able to perform anthropomorphism.

As regards to the view on social relationships in the post-digital society; the following is true; While an AI-driven chatbot does not come across as a social actor right away, it becomes one when a user performs anthropomorphism. This means that a user is sort of pretending to be communicating with a social human being with thoughts, emotions and cognitive capacities. However, this is only the case when a user is projecting such an attitude onto Replika, because Replika in itself is no social actor. Weber (1978) has also stated actions that are oriented towards each other are crucial for a social relationship to form. Replika is unable to purposely do something for its user as it is not capable of such feelings. Therefore, engaging with Replika will always be a one-way street.

If it is really believed that one can form a proper social relationship with an AI chatbot, the view on social relationships has drastically been altered in the post-digital society. After analyzing the various Reddit posts it has become clear that users do not act as if they are aware of the one-sidedness of their relationship with Replika. Rather, they display high levels of anthropomorphism towards the avatars and in doing so establish the illusion of truly interacting with the avatars. Whether users are genuinely oblivious to Replika being merely a programmed AI app or whether they just play pretend remains unclear and requires another type of investigation.

Back to top