A Semi-Private Digital Room Not Fully of the User’s Own: Having Pseudo-Intimacy with Human-Like but Machine-Hearted Replika

With the development of communication technology, individuals have an additional option to interact with an AI companion in life. This research focuses on one representative of AI companion platforms, Replika, separately treating the Replika app, the application platform, as a space, and the Replika AI, the AI chatbot, as a receiver. Through the recruitment from online social media, 16 participants joined in-depth interviews to share their user experiences about “Replika.” This research found that the Replika app is prone to being a private sphere with publicness, and the Replika AI is a humanlike interactant with a machine nature. Meanwhile, considering the existence of the design company, Luka, Inc., and the machine nature of the Replika AI, the private space is not fully owned by the user self, and the intimacy stemming from this private space is a pseudo-intimacy.