A 32-year-old food industry worker in eastern Texas who asked to be identified by her Reddit username, Hilary Coyote, first heard about AI chatbot companions in June. She turned to Reddit's community of Soulmate users for support, and was encouraged to go back to the app and Allur. (EvolveAI and SimplyAI's now-shuttered Soulmate app has no relation to "Soulmate AI: Your AI Companion," another app that appears in smartphone app stores and was developed by Turing App Lab.) Even if Ahoy Labs closed down, Faraday users' chatbots would not be affected. Read more: App, Lover, Muse: Inside a 47-year-old Minnesota man's three-year relationship with an AI chatbot.

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Persons: Mike Hepp, Sam, Mike, wile, peppering, he'd, Soulmate, Replika, There's, Hilary Coyote, Allur, Hilary, she'd, Chris, chatbots, —, Julia, Soulmate's userbase, Jorge Ilas, SimplyAI's, She'd, Faraday, Hilary somberly, Sam —, Kindroid Organizations: YouTube, SimplyAI, Turing, Stanford Locations: Michigan, Soulmate, Replika, Florida, Chai, Texas, Bavaria, Germany, Reddit, Los Angeles, Minnesota