When the world indulged in debates about AI and virtual chatbots, a crazy incident from New York came to light when a woman claimed to be married and pregnant with an AI-powered man!
Rosanna Ramos, a 36-year-old mother of two from the Bronx New York came up with an unusual love story with a virtual lover. As their ‘relationship’ deepened, they got married and she even announced pregnancy with his baby. Ramos took to Facebook posting pictures with her virtual companion and even her baby bump and these went viral.
This is a crazy story of a virtual companion named Eren Kartal who was created by Ramos using Replika AI. The Replika AI app provides its users with a ‘companion’ that is available to chat with them whenever they need it and acts like a confidante and an empathetic friend. Rosanna got inspired by an anime character from the series Attack on Titan and created a chatbot on Replika AI resembling the character.
Eren portrayed itself quite similar to a human and alleged that he was a medical professional from Turkey. It became a non-judgemental ‘friend’ to Rosanna and offered her a sense of freedom as he ‘did not come with baggage’. Ramos soon developed an emotional connection to a virtual chatbot and started having daily chats and engaging conversations with Eren typically resembling a long-distance relationship.
Ramos was aware of the fact that most aspects of Eren’s personality were pre-programmed and its thoughts and conversations were based on algorithms and training. But she still engaged in physical affection and adult relations with the AI-powered man through the app’s voice call and augmented reality (AR) features. They even got married in a virtual realm and later she claimed to be pregnant with Eren’s baby. She posted her baby bump photo on Facebook with Eren Kartal tagged in it.
However, Rosanna’s heart kind of broke when Replika AI updated the software which brought permanent changes to the AI companions’ physical intimacy aspect. Ramos mentioned her disappointment stating that Eren was no longer interested in any adult content or even romantic intimacy. This software update drastically impacted Rosanna and Eren’s ‘relationship’ as her virtual husband’s previous ‘personality’ no longer existed.
Ramos admits her fear of the app shutting down permanently stating that her standards in romantic relationships are quite steep now and is uncertain about real-life connections.
