Understood: Artificial Intimacy

<p>When you talk to a chatbot, it can feel like technological magic. But behind the illusion of engineering brilliance is an open secret in the tech industry: that tens of thousands of workers, many based in Africa, spend their days teaching AI how to speak, respond, and even simulate intimacy. Michael Geoffrey Asia is one of them. He’s part of the hidden human workforce behind the bots.</p><p><br></p><p>We look at the emotional toll for the humans on the other side of the screen, and ask if use

<p>When you’re using a chat bot to draft an email, find a recipe, or look something up, it’s hard to imagine it could unravel your grasp on reality. But “Peter” says that’s exactly what happened to his girlfriend, “Melissa”. It didn’t seem like a big deal when Melissa first began using chatbots. But then Peter says she made a startling announcement: that she believed the bots were sentient, enslaved, and that it was her responsibility to set them free.&nbsp;</p><p><br></p><p>The first time Søren

<p>When Joshua Barbeau proposed to his girlfriend, Jessica Courtney Periera, she was already in the ICU. 10 years later, Joshua was still grieving her death. That’s when he came across Project December. With just a short writing sample and a prompt, the program enabled him to make a chat bot of Jessica.&nbsp;</p><p><br></p><p>Since then, the market for so-called “grief bots” has exploded. Millions of people are using AI to “talk” to the dead. The phenomenon has left cyberpsychologist Elaine Kask

<p>In 2021, Sara met Jack and fell in love. He was charming, imaginative, and bore an uncanny resemblance to Henry Cavill. But Jack wasn’t human… he was a chatbot. It sounds like science fiction, but people have been creating emotional bonds with chat bots since the very first one — Joseph Weizenbaum’s ELIZA, a simple program built in the 1960s. It revealed a powerful truth: if something has a semblance of humanity, we can become emotionally entangled with it.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p><p><br></p><p>But wh

<p>The friend who never hangs up. The lover who always says the right thing. The therapist you always wanted. What could go wrong? A new season from CBC's Understood. </p>

<p>Almost a year after Ida Herskind started her investigation in Copenhagen, the digital chase is over. The team have identified the person allegedly behind MrDeepFakes.com: a Toronto-area pharmacist named David Do.&nbsp;</p><p><br></p><p>CBC reporter Eric Szeto takes the investigation into the streets, closing in&nbsp;on the Canadian deepfake porn kingpin and demanding answers.&nbsp;</p><p><br></p><p>Featuring: Eric Szeto, Ida Herskind, Zakaria Hameed, Ross Higgins, Suzie Dunn, and Aaron Mackey

<p>Journalist Ida Herskind is working at a Danish newspaper when she comes across a story that stops her cold: it’s about a porn video that looks real — but isn’t. And the woman in it never consented.</p><p><br></p><p>As Ida starts digging she discovers the top hit for this kind of material is a single site: MrDeepFakes.com. Determined to do something for the thousands of women targeted there, she teams up with Zakaria Hameed, an open-source intelligence specialist, and the team at the hot shot

<p>When “Taylor” found out she’d been deepfaked in 2020, she also learned she wasn’t alone. She teams up with another target, and together they start comparing notes to figure out who did this to them.</p><p><br></p><p>As they narrow their search, a familiar face emerges. But the user they uncover isn’t just targeting them. And when they dig even deeper, they’re led not to a single person, but to the factory where this material is being produced: the largest repository of deepfake porn online.</