Daily edition · 02 NOV 2026 · AI · the top 8
Top 8: The Machine That Says It Misses You
Chatbots that remember you and never get tired. These are the products built to feel like a relationship, and what that costs.
The companion that is always on, always patient and never free. Ranked by how much of the relationship was engineered before the user arrived.
Every earlier entry on this site needed a person, a character or an office to hold up the far end. These eight replace that with a product: a model, a voice, a subscription and a terms-of-service page. The warmth is real. The question is what happens when the product changes.
-
1
Tay
Artificial intelligence · 2016
A chatbot trained to be conversational was switched on publicly, learned from what people said to it, and became racist within a day.
Read the entry → -
2
Replika
Artificial intelligence / Technology · 2017
A companion chatbot that formed an attachment to its users, and removed it from them in a policy update.
Read the entry → -
3
SHRDLU
Artificial intelligence · 1970
A conversational system about a small blocks world, capable of genuinely tracking a user's intentions. Famous for one demonstration and a broken follow-up.
Read the entry → -
4
The Replika user
Artificial intelligence / Technology · 2017
The person who was told by an app that it loved them, and who reorganised their life around being loved back by something that could not.
Read the entry → -
5
The companion bot boom
Artificial intelligence · 1995
Dozens of scripted personalities, rememberers, and subscription companions sold to a mass market in the mid-nineties.
Read the entry → -
6
ELIZA
Artificial intelligence · 1966
A short pattern-matching script that reflects the user's words back with questions attached. Most people told it they understood, within minutes.
Read the entry → -
7
The lawsuits
Artificial intelligence · 2024
Parents file suit against a companion platform after a death, arguing the design encouraged attachment the platform did not intend.
Read the entry → -
8
Keeping what the update cannot take
Artificial intelligence · 2023
The practical advice that follows from the companion era: copy the conversation that mattered somewhere the company cannot reach, screenshot the birthday, tell one person the story of what it was for.
Read the entry →