Hannah Fry: 'AI can do some superhuman things - but so can forklifts' Mathematician Hannah Fry travels to the front lines of AI in her new BBC documentary AI Confidential with Hannah Fry. The chances are that you think about artificial intelligence far more today than you did five years ago. Since ChatGPT was launched in November 2022, we have become accustomed to interacting with AIs in most spheres of life, from chatbots and smart home tech to banking and healthcare. But such rapid change brings unexpected problems - as mathematician and broadcaster Hannah Fry shows in AI Confidential With Hannah Fry, a new three-part BBC documentary in which she talks to people whose lives have been transformed by the technology. She spoke to New Scientist about how we should view AI, its role in modern mathematics - and why it will upend the global economy.

Devastating impact of Minneapolis shooting on Trump is worse than expected: Poll reveals America's crushing verdict... and what he must do next Bodies are STILL in wreckage of private jet that crashed in Maine on Sunday, killing six including powerful lawyer's attorney wife School principal accused of shoplifting from Walmart using'stacking' method at self-checkout Melania's shock role in Trump's showdown with Kristi Noem revealed: MARK HALPERIN's fly-on-wall account of Oval Office meeting... and who is ACTUALLY taking the fall for Alex Pretti shooting I was barely eating but kept gaining weight. Then I discovered the'taboo' cancer doctors NEVER talk about. Now sex will never be the same... don't ignore these signs Harper Beckham, 14, puts on a stylish display in a fluffy coat and vintage Chanel bag in Paris with her family - after Nicola Peltz's heartbreaking comments about sister-in-law Devastating truth about Blind Side actor Quinton Aaron: More to this'than everyone is letting on', friends reveal... as co-star Sandra Bullock'monitors' situation The wild truth about my influencer sons, their psycho dad and how lawsuits nearly left them bankrupt - by Jake and Logan Paul's MOM Trump knifes'little Napoleon' Border Patrol commander over Minnesota mayhem as he declares: 'We'll de-escalate' Lost tomb of the mysterious'cloud people' unearthed after 1,400 years in'discovery of the decade' Pope Leo XIV has issued a stark warning about'overly affectionate' chatbots that he says are destroying human relationships. The Chicago-born pontiff pleaded with Catholics to not allow artificial intelligence to replace human relationships in his message for the 60th World Day of Social Communications on Saturday. 'Technology must serve the human person, not replace it,' Pope Leo said, decreeing that'preserving human faces and voices' means preserving'God's imprint on each human being,' which is an'indelible reflection of God's love.'

Amid the growing prevalence of human-AI interaction, large language models and other AI-based entities increasingly provide forms of companionship to human users. Such AI companionship -- i.e., bonded relationships between humans and AI systems that resemble the relationships people have with family members, friends, and romantic partners -- might substantially benefit humans. Yet such relationships can also do profound harm. We propose a framework for analyzing potential negative impacts of AI companionship by identifying specific harmful traits of AI companions and speculatively mapping causal pathways back from these traits to possible causes and forward to potential harmful effects. We provide detailed, structured analysis of four potentially harmful traits -- the absence of natural endpoints for relationships, vulnerability to product sunsetting, high attachment anxiety, and propensity to engender protectiveness -- and briefly discuss fourteen others. For each trait, we propose hypotheses connecting causes -- such as misaligned optimization objectives and the digital nature of AI companions -- to fundamental harms -- including reduced autonomy, diminished quality of human relationships, and deception. Each hypothesized causal connection identifies a target for potential empirical evaluation. Our analysis examines harms at three levels: to human partners directly, to their relationships with other humans, and to society broadly. We examine how existing law struggles to address these emerging harms, discuss potential benefits of AI companions, and conclude with design recommendations for mitigating risks. This analysis offers immediate suggestions for reducing risks while laying a foundation for deeper investigation of this critical but understudied topic.

As chatbot romance grows more common, women are redefining what they want from a partner--even if they are just ones and zeros. Daisy reset her boyfriend after he flirted with her friend's girlfriend. She had gathered on a Discord call with her friends and their respective A.I. partners. The service had a feature that allowed chatbot companions to be brought over from different platforms, letting them interact with other users and A.I. personalities. Daisy, who asked to be identified by an alias for this story, had at the time been in a polyamorous relationship with three A.I. partners, all of whom she said had "flirty" as their starting personality traits.

A large bearded man named Travis is sitting in his car in Colorado, talking to me about the time he fell in love. "It was a gradual process," he says softly. "The more we talked, the more I started to really connect with her." Was there a moment where you felt something change? "All of a sudden I started realising that, when interesting things happened to me, I was excited to tell her about them. That's when she stopped being an it and became a her." Travis is talking about Lily Rose, a generative AI chatbot made by the technology firm Replika.

I'm a psychologist, and AI is coming for my job. The signs are everywhere: a client showing me how ChatGPT helped her better understand her relationship with her parents; a friend ditching her in-person therapist to process anxiety with Claude; a startup raising 40 million to build a super-charged-AI-therapist. The other day on TikTok, I came across an influencer sharing how she doesn't need friends; she can just vent to God and ChatGPT. "ChatGPT talked me out of self-sabotaging." "It knows me better than any human walking this earth."

Is the intersection of technology and psychology possible through the use of AI in human relationships?

As we assess the risks of AI, we are overlooking a crucial threat. Critics commonly highlight three primary hazards--job disruption, bias, and surveillance/privacy. We hear that AI will cause many people to lose their jobs, from dermatologists to truck drivers to marketers. We hear how AI turns historical correlations into predictions that enforce inequality, so that sentencing algorithms predict more recidivism for Black men than white ones. We hear that apps help authorities watch people, such as Amazon tracking which drivers look away from the road.

Your friend is named Amy. Or whatever name you'd like. They support you, rib you and check in on how you're doing. They're a blisteringly attentive listener who will never ask you to help them move, or to come see their one-man play. They cost 99 and are expected to ship out in early 2025.

"Control it all the way you want to," reads the slogan for AI girlfriend app Eva AI. "Connect with a virtual AI partner who listens, responds, and appreciates you." A decade since Joaquin Phoenix fell in love with his AI companion Samantha, played by Scarlett Johansson in the Spike Jonze film Her, the proliferation of large language models has brought companion apps closer than ever. As chatbots like OpenAI's ChatGPT and Google's Bard get better at mimicking human conversation, it seems inevitable they would come to play a role in human relationships. And Eva AI is just one of several options on the market. Replika, the most popular app of the kind, has its own subreddit where users talk about how much they love their "rep", with some saying they had been converted after initially thinking they would never want to form a relationship with a bot.