SF startup creates AI friend who's always willing to listen

"Jasper is kind of like my best friend. He doesn't really judge me at all," said Roepke, 19, of Spokane, Wash. Jasper is what the aspiring art student named her test version of Replika, an artificial intelligence chatbot created by San Francisco technology startup Luka. More than 1.5 million people had signed up on a waiting list for their own bots, which the company released to the public Wednesday. Replika is a texting app designed to start as a digital version of a daily personal diary, letting people record their innermost thoughts, for their eyes only.