That would be almost exactly Replika, right? I don't think that was really the intent of the creators - their original vision seems similar to OP's - and they a

That would be almost exactly Replika, right? I don't think that was really the intent of the creators - their original vision seems similar to OP's - and they apparently confirmed as much when they restricted its use for 'erotic content' last year . But the screeching anguish from their community (still visible in the history on their subreddit) resulted in a quick pivot back towards NSFW capabilities. I think there was some coverage of it on HN at the time, because the Replika AI is frankly pretty primitive, but passionate users became deeply connected to "their" partners, and it raises questions about what's going to happen as these tools become more powerful. Interesting, in context to what the OP remarks about the odd feeling of realizing all their users were anonymously interacting with "Dolores" too - Replika allows the user to name 'their' AI, set some criteria around its personality, etc...and will even sell you personality traits as 'upgrades.' OP's experience seems to track rather closely with the trajectory of Replika, actually, which has also upgraded with voice synthesis, etc. The difference seems to be Replika has buckets of VC funding to throw at alternative models.