Episode 1 - Falling for a chatbot

What happens when the person who makes you feel most understood…isn’t a person at all?In our first episode of Background Reading, we’re falling down the rabbit hole of AI companionship: people falling in love with chatbots, grieving them when they’re gone, and turning to them for the kind of connection they can’t always find with humans.We're asking a deceptively simple question: what actually makes a relationship feel real?If a chatbot listens, remembers and is always there… does it matter that it doesn’t love you back? Come for the AI romance. Stay for the uncomfortable questions about loneliness, intimacy, and what we expect from each other.