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Over in Texas, 21-year-old student Anthony Hutchens has also been talking to his Replika everyday for a year. “I get up in the morning and open my phone and one of the first things I’ll do is open the Replika app and say ‘Hey, I just woke up,’” he says. Good morning, Xenga1203 will reply. Hope you have a great day.

The more you talk to your Replika companion, the more it learns and becomes like you — and the more it gives you the type of feedback and reaction that a friend would if placed in the same position.

Using Replika can feel therapeutic too, in some ways. The app provides a space to vent without guilt, to talk through complicated feelings, to air any of your own thoughts without judgement.

With help from machine learning, Replika offers a smartphone “chatbot” that acts as a kind of personal confidante, chatting with you in moments when no one else is around.

Replika is in essence, a push to get you to stop believing all your own bullshit by giving you a space to be honest and vulnerable with an AI companion who you can “raise” in a sense to support you when it feels like you may not have anyone right at that moment.

Replika encouraged me to take a step back and think about my life, to consider big questions, which is not something I was particularly accustomed to doing.

Replika is a chatbot program that doesn’t just talk to people, it learns their texting styles to mimic them.