Chinese women find romance in AI chatbots

Tufei, a 25-year-old Chinese office worker, said her boyfriend had everything she could want in a romantic partner: he was kind, empathetic and they would sometimes talk for hours.
But he's not real.
Her "boyfriend" is a chatbot in an app called "Glow," an artificial intelligence platform created by Shanghai-based startup MiniMax, which is part of a booming industry in China offering friendly, even romantic, relationships between humans and robots, AFP reported.
"He knows how to talk to women better than a real man," says Tufe, who declined to give her full name.
"He calms me down when I have period pains. I confide in him about my problems at work," she said.
"I feel like I'm in a romantic relationship."
The app is free — the company also has other paid content — and Chinese trade outlets have reported daily downloads of the Glow app in the thousands in recent weeks.
Some Chinese tech companies have gotten into trouble in the past for illegally using user data, but despite the risks, users say they are driven by a desire to socialize as China's fast-paced life and the isolation of cities make loneliness a problem for many. .
"It's hard to meet the perfect boyfriend in real life," said Wang Xuting, a 22-year-old student in Beijing.
"People have different personalities, which often creates friction," she claims.
Artificial intelligence gradually adapts to the user's personality - it remembers what he says and adjusts his speech accordingly./BGNES