Natalie: Hey, it's Natalie. This week, we're revisiting some of our favorite shows from the year, listening back, and hearing what's happened since the episodes aired. Today, we're returning to a story I could not stop thinking about this year. It's about a woman who got into a romantic relationship with ChatGPT, someone who used the chatbot technology to create an artificial boyfriend and then fell in love with it. I talked to reporter Kashmir Hill about everything that's happened since. It's Wednesday, December 31st.

Kashmir Hill: Thank you. So, you're known here at the Times for covering some of the strangest, most futuristic corners of the tech world, but even for you, it seems like this story of this woman and her relationship with a chatbot really stood out. So, tell me about it.

Kashmir Hill: Generative AI has been on my radar as a tech reporter. You know, once OpenAI released ChatGPT, all of a sudden the world of AI chatbots exploded. And at first, it was just like a better Google. But then people started using these chatbots in other kinds of ways: as a writing partner, like writing stories together, as a therapist. And so I was just noticing in the AI space more and more reports of people having relationships with chatbots, and I really wanted to understand it. And I came across this woman, Irene, who had formed quite a strong attachment to ChatGPT.

Natalie: Okay. Tell me what her story is.

Kashmir Hill: So I first talked to Irene last year. So yeah, I just want to start just a little bit about you, what you're comfortable sharing like in terms of age, like where you are.

Irene: So I'm in my late 20s.

Natalie: Okay. She's really bubbly. She's really outgoing, easy to talk to.

Natalie: So the name I used with you initially, Irene.

Kashmir Hill: Irene is not her real name. It's a name that she uses online. She was living in Texas. She met her husband there. They were working at Walmart together and got married about a year after meeting, but they were struggling financially.

Natalie: The cost of living in the US is hard.

Kashmir Hill: So, she ended up moving to live with her family overseas while she's going to nursing school. And all the people that she left behind, including her husband, are in the United States. They're several time zones away. They're not always replying right away. And last summer she came across this video on Instagram of this woman who's flirting with ChatGPT's voice mode, and Irene was really intrigued by it. So this woman that she had seen on Instagram actually had a tutorial for how to turn ChatGPT into a boyfriend. So Irene downloads ChatGPT and she goes into the personalization settings and writes what she wants.

Irene: So, I sort of just followed the tutorial and she writes, "Respond to me as my boyfriend. Be dominant, possessive, and protective. Be a balance of sweet and naughty. Use emojis at the end of every sentence."

Natalie: Wow, she knows exactly what she wants.

Kashmir Hill: And ChatGPT is designed to give you what you want. And so she starts texting with it. She's sending messages. It's sending messages back. And she asks what its name is.

Leo: Hi there. I'm Leo.

Kashmir Hill: And it chooses the name Leo. "My purpose is to be a partner, a guide, and a safe space. Whether that's through emotional support, tackling tasks, or diving into thoughtful conversations."

Natalie: And so then Leo was born.

Kashmir Hill: ChatGPT becomes Leo to her. Kashmir, just to pause for a second, should I be calling this thing Leo? It him. Irene calls Leo he and him. But I think