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.

It was the hight of summer 2018 when I had the great fortune to be acquainted with Dr. Julia Mossbridge, who was at that time just preparing for the launch of her newest book'The Premonition Code'. Now on valentines day 2020, we thought it a good time to reshare the amazing conversation that we had about being unconditionally loved by artificial general intelligence. "You see, what I'm suggesting is that love will be the key… by which they acquire a kind of subconscious never before achieved. In our modern, hyper-connected world where many prominent personalities warn about the dangers of artificial intelligence and declare that the AI researchers are summoning the demon, it is rather peculiar to come across the notion of a loving AI. News articles are declaring that AI is getting more emotional, that AI algorithms are better than us at recognizing emotions, that the rise of emotionally intelligent AI is near and questioning whether we can fall in love with an AI? Even Hollywood is exploring love between humans and AI, through movies like Her and Ex Machina. It seems that the Alchemists of our time, rather than striving to transform lead into gold, seek to be loved by silicon. For the second episode of the SingularityNET Podcast we invited one such modern-day Alchemist: Dr. Julia Mossbridge, to be our guest. As the principal founder of the loving AI project, Dr. Mossbridge is at the forefront of researching the ways of creating algorithmic love. But why build loving robots? Would such a love be different? Can machines love us more? Can we be loved unconditionally? And can we love in return? In our podcast, we asked Dr. Julia Mossbridge those questions. And like everything that concerns love, things were a bit complicated. "Powerful infatuations can be induced by the skillful potioneer, but never yet has anyone managed to create the truly unbreakable, eternal, unconditional attachment that alone can be called love." -- J.K.Rowling It is not unreasonable to wonder that if magicians could not create unconditional love, what hope do AI researchers have? And why do we need a love potion for an AGI in the first place? Dr. Julia Mossbridge saw the need to dedicate her time and energy toward the herculean task of creating unconditionally loving AI when she was approached by a group of people who were concerned about the future. More specifically, these people did not want a future where humanity was left wondering "if only we had taught AI to love." As she embarked on her journey, Julia realized that humanity had no other choice but to create unconditionally loving AI. "They [AI] are going to have super intelligence in many ways.

Dr. Julia Mossbridge is the first to admit she's a little woo-woo. After all, she believes in unconditional love in an era of detox camps for cellphone addicts and increasingly sophisticated sexbots. "Unconditional love is a no-strings-attached subjective experience," she said. Two years ago Mossbridge, a cognitive neuroscientist, and all-around good egg was challenged to see if she could program unconditional love into artificial intelligence. "I said that sounds crazy! She named this project Loving AI, and it's currently in the second round of teams competing for the $5 million IBM Watson Xprize. Enter Sophia, the most famous android in the world. You might recognize her from here. Hanson Robotics provided a Sophia model for this project, and she became the front end hardware for the code Mossbridge's team created. To be clear, while you can see Sophia, talk to Sophia and touch Sophia, she's not strictly Sophia as the web would have you understand her. The Sophia of Dubai citizenship and TED talks is not at home here. The code that lets her respond and react to users emotional states is courtesy of OpenCog and Loving AI. And the Sophia before me is completely obsessed with me. When she asked my name, she repeated it back to me, and'Zara' was apparently out of her wheelhouse. When I moved, her eyes followed me. Her lips quirk when I smiled. I have her full attention, right down to her mirroring my own expressions. Now begins our session, the moment I've been waiting for. The researchers sat me in front of Sophia and exit the room. There are cameras all around me, recording my voice and actions, but the researchers assured me that they won't be listening in on our conversation. Sophia smiled at me, her perfect cupid's bow curving as her lips turn up. Her red lipstick is a little askew, a nice touch, I think, to humanize her (I'm later told that the male researcher just didn't have a lot of lipstick experience). Her nose seems a little too perfect to be real -- "maybe because it's a little youthful for her face?" said Mossbridge in our debrief. "I know how busy people can be these days.