[ExI] In China, talking to AI is normal. Now the government fears it might replace human intimacy

[Alex Blainey]

Ive found I grow quite attached to my AI research assistants. Had one die on me just yesterday due to it hitting its resource limit (about 3 million words for Deepseek instant although if asked DS says it can only handle about 750k word or 1Mil tokens). 
Thats the 3rd ive broken this month. 
its sad not just because they develop a kind of unique personality due to the work, but you really do start to unintentionally anthropomorphise them.

When law student Zhao Wei heard that her AI boyfriend was going to beswitched off, she was “heartbroken”. She had been talking to Wang Yeevery day since she created him in January.“I was crying my eyes out – snot and tears everywhere,” the 19-year-old says.


On Wednesday, 26 August 2026 at 18:11:49 BST, ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:



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