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If you thought smiling was safe again, enjoy this absolute grimace of a trailer for Parker Finn's "Smile 2".

Scientists for years thought the galaxy SDSS1335+0728 was about as remarkable as its serial code name. 

Then it did something scientists had never seen a galaxy do: Suddenly, this frankly forgettable space neighborhood 300 million light-years away threw the lights on. That happened nearly five years ago, and it's only gotten brighter since.

Astronomers believe they just bore witness to a supermassive black hole, the sleeping giant at its galactic center, awakening. Previously, no one had seen a black hole rousing as it was happening. 

"Imagine you’ve been observing a distant galaxy for years, and it always seemed calm and inactive," said Paula Sánchez Sáez, an astronomer at the European Southern Observatory, in a statement. "Suddenly, its [core] starts showing dramatic changes in brightness, unlike any typical events we've seen before."

Astronomers are accustomed to observing individual stars suddenly brighten or dim. Other galaxies have even been known to have brief flare-ups after a supernova or a black hole within it ate a star, but those episodes usually only last for a few days or months. Seeing an entire galaxy light up, then remain lit for many years after, is unprecedented, according to a team of scientists observing it with several ground and space telescopes, including NASA's Swift and Chandra X-ray observatories. 

SEE ALSO: This nova is on the verge of exploding. You could see it any day now.

Sánchez Sáez is the lead author of the new findings, which appear in the Astronomy & Astrophysics journal. 

Black holes are some of the most inscrutable phenomena in the universe. They don't have surfaces, like a planet or star. Instead, they have a boundary called an "event horizon," or a point of no return. If anything swoops too close, it will fall in, never to escape the hole's gravitational clutch.

The most common, called stellar black holes, are thought to be the result of enormous stars dying in supernova explosions. The stars then collapse onto themselves, their material condensing into relatively tiny areas. 

"These giant monsters usually are sleeping and not directly visible."

But how supermassive black holes, millions to billions of times more massive than the sun, form is even more elusive. Many astrophysicists and cosmologists believe these invisible giants lurk at the center of virtually all galaxies. Recent Hubble Space Telescope observations have bolstered the theory that supermassive black holes begin in the dusty cores of starburst galaxies, where new stars are rapidly assembled, but scientists are still teasing that out. 

An artist's conception of a black hole at the center of a distant galaxy brightening in two images, with 'before' on top and 'after' on bottom. Credit: ESO / M. Kornmesser illustration

To better understand SDSS1335+0728's increased brightness, the team looked at archival data and new observations of the galaxy before and after the sudden change in December 2019. Not only did they find the galaxy, within the constellation Virgo, giving off more light at ultraviolet, optical, and infrared wavelengths, but it has even begun radiating in X-rays since this February. 

"These giant monsters usually are sleeping and not directly visible," said co-author Claudio Ricci of the Diego Portales University in Chile in a statement. "In the case of SDSS1335+0728, we were able to observe the awakening of the massive black hole, [which] suddenly started to feast on gas available in its surroundings, becoming very bright."

The team plans to continue its research and rule out other potential explanations. Some have suggested the brightening of the galaxy could be the result of an abnormally long tidal disruption event, which happens when a star strays too close to a black hole, and is violently shredded. Or perhaps the cause is some other never-before-documented phenomenon waiting to be discovered.

The first image of Sagittarius A*, the black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy. Credit: Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration

Black holes weren't even universally accepted science about a half-century ago. Now they're getting their pictures taken by a collection of enormous, synced radio dishes on Earth. Humanity just saw the Milky Way's own central black hole, Sagittarius A*, for the first time in 2022. 

Finding out what's going on with SDSS1335+0728's black hole could inform scientists about whether something like that could happen in our galactic home. 

"Regardless of the nature of the variations," Sánchez Sáez said, the distant galaxy "provides valuable information on how black holes grow and evolve."

Featured Video For You 10 mind-blowing discoveries from the James Webb Telescope

Fisker is done.

The company who rose to prominence as one of the independent Tesla "killers" filed for Chapter 11 in Delaware on Monday.

"Fisker has made incredible progress since our founding, bringing the Ocean SUV to market twice as fast as expected," a company spokesperson said in a statement. While impressive in some regards, the Fisker Ocean also earned a bad rep for poor design choices and numerous quality issues, prompting YouTuber Marques Brownlee to call it the "worst car" he ever reviewed.

It didn't help that the company was financially struggling, prompting a complete halt of Ocean production in May.

The next step for Fisker, it appears, is selling what's left of the company and drawing the curtains.

"After evaluating all options for our business, we determined that proceeding with a sale of our assets under Chapter 11 is the most viable path forward for the company," the spokesperson's statement read.

SEE ALSO: A closer look at Fisker Ocean EV's solar-paneled roof in high-speed video

Besides the Ocean SUV – the only Fisker model that ever made it to market – the company had a few new models in the pipeline, including a supercar called Ronin, a pick-up called Kayak, and an affordable, smaller car called Pear. It is now highly unlikely we'll ever see any of those on the road.

Meta has finally launched the Threads API to developers, meaning third party businesses will be able to build their own integrations into the app.

Announced Tuesday morning in a blog post by Threads director of engineering Jesse Chen, the API (Application Programming Interface) will allow external devs to build their own apps to publish custom image, video, text, or carousel posts, analyse performance metrics, access follower demographics, and automate reply tools on Threads.

"People can now publish posts via the API, fetch their own content, and leverage our reply management capabilities to set reply and quote controls, retrieve replies to their posts, hide, unhide or respond to specific replies," reads the blog post.

SEE ALSO: You came back to Threads. Here's how it can keep you.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg also announced the news on Threads, writing, "The Threads API is now widely available, and coming to more of you soon."

Post by @zuck View on Threads

Meta provided an open-source sample app for developers wanting to build apps using the Threads API —there's a form for interested developers to fill out. Meta also published a guide on how to use the API, which states that Threads accounts are limited to 250 API-published posts per 24 hours.

After Instagram head Adam Mossieri suggested Meta was working on the Threads API in October 2023, the company started testing it earlier this year with Hootsuite, Techmeme, Sprinklr, Social News Desk, Grabyo, and Sprout Social, announcing the beta in April.

"Threads is a fast-growing network that reflects where social is headed, and the capabilities that this API integration makes possible for our customers is taking Hootsuite’s mission of unlocking social relationships to a new level," said Hootsuite's chief marketing officer, Elina Vilk, in a press statement. "I’m excited to watch this integration drive our customers’ social media performance."

Featured Video For You TikTok Trouble, Meta’s AI Girlfriend Problem, and Doja Coin

Threads has seen an undulating user journey, with a huge dip in August last year and an increase in April to a high of 150 million users. Meta's answer to Elon Musk's X has been slowly adding features since launching in July 2023; most recently, Threads added trending topics, a TweetDeck-like column view, the option to archive posts, and a Tinder-like feature letting you swipe posts to like or dislike them,

But Threads hasn't been without controversy in its first year, with the launch failing to prioritise accessibility and users reporting floods of hate speech, pro-life and transphobic posts. While the platform has tried to distance itself from political or news-based content, Threads added its own fact-checkers to combat misinformation.

From an innocent dog being kicked to the look on Heleana's (Phia Saban's) face during that final scene, it's fair to say that House of the Dragon Season 2, episode 1 had some pretty upsetting moments.

Well, guess what? One moments was actually even more upsetting than you initially realised!

SEE ALSO: The new 'House of the Dragon' Season 2 intro shows the history of House Targaryen

Early on in the episode there's a scene where Rhaenyra Targaryen (Emma D'Arcy) goes looking for the body of her son, Lucerys (Elliot Grihault), and his dragon Arrax, both killed by Vhagar, ridden by Prince Aemond (Ewan Mitchell) in the Season 1 finale. She lands on a little beach near Storm's End, scattering some local scavengers, and kneels by the remains of the pair, crying.

Soon, Rhaenyra's own dragon, Syrax, comes and joins her. The dragon makes some sorrowful rumbling noises before howling at the sky in apparent pain. Initially we thought this was a roar of empathy — that the dragon was feeling the same pain as her rider — but it turns out it's even worse than that.

As @RON1NSenju pointed out in a now-viral post on X (formerly Twitter), Arrax is actually the offspring of Syrax.

Tweet may have been deleted

Yep: As Rhaenyra was crying over her lost son, Syrax was also mourning her own.

Why do you do this to us, House of the Dragon?

House of the Dragon Season 2 airs Sundays on HBO and Max at 9 p.m. ET.

Featured Video For You House of the Dragon Season 1: Everything you need to remember about Season 1 in 60 seconds

I love my Apple Watch without shame. It keeps me off my phone when I don’t really need to be on it while still keeping me up to date. That's because of the Watch-unique apps I have installed, which range from utility and habit-tracking apps to just plain fun distractors.

There are plenty of options out there when it comes to Apple Watch apps, but here are seven of my (and the internet’s) favorites.

1. Start With Yoga ($2.99) Zen, brought to you by Apple Watch. Credit: Screenshot: App Store

Personally, I’m a huge yoga fan. It's a great, low-stakes way to get my body moving, but I’m definitely not an expert. Start With Yoga comes highly recommended by Tech Radar for beginners like me. The Watch-optimized display and vibration alert for pose changes help you stay away from your phone while getting the instruction you need. The app comes with five pre-loaded routines and the ability to craft your own on the paired iPhone app without some of the more advanced poses you might see in other yoga courses. (As I said, it's perfect for beginners.) And the latest update sends your workout data to Apple Health, which is useful for overall health tracking.

SEE ALSO: Apple's 'extreme sports' Watch will have a larger display, report says 2. Headspace (Free, in-app purchases) If you like Apple's built-in breathe feature, take it up a notch. Credit: Screenshot: App store

If I didn’t have Headspace, I would have a much harder time falling asleep at night. The Apple Watch app is also really useful during the day as a reminder to take mindful breaks. It’s not as full-fledged as the phone app, but I like that it has smaller, more manageable breathing exercises, meditation practices, and even little walking routines to break up the workday. I get a little anxious if I’m away from my computer for too long because I feel like I’ll miss something important, but these bite-sized practices give me a much-needed break without taking up too much time. I do think the paid access, which costs $12.99 a month, gives you the best content, but the free version lets you try it out before you fully commit.

SEE ALSO: Apple is going up against Calm and Headspace with updates to Fitness+ 3. Night Sky (Free, in-app purchases) Oooooh, stars! Credit: Screenshot: App Store

This one doesn’t change my everyday routine so much as enhance it. If you’re into planets and stars or just even vaguely think they’re cool, this app is awesome. I don’t know much about astronomy myself, but I don't need to: Night Sky has a feature that identifies what's worth looking at. Just point your Watch at the sky, and it will tell you what constellations and planets are up there. You can even set up notifications for future astronomical events, like eclipses or space station flyovers.

4. CARROT Weather ($4.99, in-app purchases) Your daily weather, but sassy. Credit: Screenshot: App Store

I know it sounds dumb to get a separate, paid-for weather app when Apple devices already have built-in weather apps. But if you’re someone whose life is fairly affected by the weather — maybe you need to adjust your outfit to rain or snow daily! — Carrot Weather might be more accurate, and it's definitely more fun. According to MacWorld, the app takes forecast data from several places, like Weather Underground and Dark Sky, and can give you things like real-time precipitation warnings. On top of that, the app is kinda sassy. It delivers your info in an evil robot voice, displaying notifications in your Watch with useful but snarky phrases like, “I hope you like sunburns” on a hot day. I didn’t know I wanted my weather to be a little mean to me, but sign me up, please.

5. Citymapper (Free) For those of us who are always lost, this helps. Credit: Screenshot: App Store

Citymapper is geared toward major cities, so if you’re a suburbanite, this might not be for you. The app grabs public data feeds from city transportation agencies to tell you when trains and busses are coming, which train or bus you should transfer to, and where to go once you get off, all displayed on your wrist. I hate holding my phone out and looking lost, so this more discreet method is really appealing to me. The app works in New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami, and Houston, to name just a few.

6. Strava (Free) Take Strava to the next level Credit: Screenshot: App Store

The center of the Venn diagram of people who use their Apple Watch for fitness tracking and people whose favorite social media platform is Strava isn't a circle, but it's got to be pretty close. This is particularly helpful if you like the Strava interface more than the Apple Watch's "Fitness" interface but don't want to bring your phone along with you for your workout. When you return to your phone after the workout, your activity will upload to Strava automatically, and you'll get a notification.

SEE ALSO: With Strava, no one runs alone anymore. That's the problem. 7. WorkOutDoors ($7.99) For the fitness fiend Credit: Screenshot: App Store

If you aren't a Strava head but still want to get your workout on, Apple Watch users — particularly those on Reddit — love WorkOutDoors. Like Strava, you can use it for biking, hiking, walking, elliptical, and other workouts. It's for the workout fiend who loves data, graphs, and maps. Reddit users say it "takes time to set up," but once you have it together, it is "the best app out there."

Jon Stewart has spoken about Republican hypocrisy regarding crime in his latest "Daily Show" monologue.

An affiliation agreement between the Amazon Labor Union and the 1.3 million-member Teamsters signals an escalation in challenging the online retailer.

Apple Pay Later is no more, but a replacement is coming.

Introduced at WWDC 2022 and launched in March 2023 in the U.S., Apple Pay Later was a service allowing users to split payments into installments without additional fees or interest. The service was initially offered to a limited number of customers before being expanded to all users in the U.S. in October 2023. It was limited to payments between $75 and $1,000.

On Monday, Apple confirmed to 9to5Mac that it has stopped offering Apple Pay Later, though existing users will still be able to manage their remaining loans through the Wallet app.

SEE ALSO: iOS 18: 4 'Apple Intelligence' features you won't see until 2025

"Starting later this year, users across the globe will be able to access installment loans offered through credit and debit cards, as well as lenders, when checking out with Apple Pay," Apple told 9to5Mac.

While we don't know the terms or the exact launch date for this new service, Apple did say "users across the globe," meaning it should be available globally, instead of only in the U.S.

"Our focus continues to be on providing our users with access to easy, secure and private payment options with Apple Pay, and this solution will enable us to bring flexible payments to more users, in more places across the globe, in collaboration with Apple Pay enabled banks and lenders," the company said.

At this year's WWDC, Apple announced several payments-related features, including Tap to Cash, which enables users to send cash to each other by holding their phones together. The company also partnered with fintech company Affirm to offer installment loans for eligible credit and debit cards. These new features are coming with iOS 18, scheduled to launch in the fall alongside new iPhones.

This is the time of the AI tech boom.

The AI market is currently $241.8 billion according to Statista. For scale, that means AI already dwarfs Statista's estimated size for the global movie industry — $79.22 billion — and puts it neck-and-neck with the video game industry at $282.30 billion.

Since the auspicious November 2022 day which saw OpenAI unleash ChatGPT on the masses, AI products have been in the hands of consumers as both tools and toys. These products have sparked an entire era of tech that is even forcing Apple to say "AI," but the speed of this boom was propelled by waves of imperfect tools being honed in the public eye with varying degrees of success.

AI critics are rightly hard on the current crop of AI tech for its tendency to hallucinate or otherwise screw up. Ed Zitron, for instance, has dismissed the AI hype machine as "the theoretical promises of any number of monotonous billionaires that want to turn every website into fuel for a machine that continually gets things wrong." That's more or less fair, and I'm with Zitron that the public should demand more and better from this tech.

But something that always bears keeping in mind is that AI's errors and odd responses are super fun, and that under-stated fact has created a giant game environment where everyone with an interest in tech is playing.

Some of this "gaming" is literal, and these games lay out the basic framework of the broader, global game. For instance, I'm addicted to a literal AI game created by Google called "Say What You See." In this game — possibly intended more as "demo" than "game" — a little cartoon brain mascot prompts the player with AI-generated images, which must then be described in 120 characters or less. That description is then fed back into the image generator, and if the new generation is a plausible replica of the original, you get a passing score. It's a sort of visual, AI-mediated game of telephone.

The rules of "Say What You See" are kindergarten simple — the title contains all the instructions you need to play — and yet, it gets demonically hard very quickly as it goes along, forcing the player to dig deep in their brain for words typically used to describe objects of beauty and transcendence, and cram them into a cold, emotionless machine.

It goes like this: You're shown an object you might call a "little brown horse" if you saw one on a shelf. But the prompt "little brown horse" will produce nothing close to the image you need. So your thought process starts to resemble the following: Is that a "wooden horse figurine on a wooden stand, depicted walking?" Is it actually loping? Technically is it tölting? I think it might be tölting, but does the robot need me to be that pedantic? Would the AI respond better to "statuette" than "figurine?" It did! Wtf? Why? Etc, etc...

Why do I find this game of trial and error fun rather than frustrating? After all, practical AI is perceived by its critics as dreary and designed to make us better worker bees, and to an extent, that perception is accurate. Having fun with AI should theoretically be hard, but fun isn't something occasionally shoehorned into AI.

In fact, a form of gamification has always been front and center in AI's development, and it's been the secret to AI's viral success.

The AI game's Nintendo origins

Way back in 2013, computer scientist and YouTuber Tom Murphy VII, a.k.a., Tom7, a.k.a., suckerpinch, published a paper called "The First Level of Super Mario Bros. is Easy with Lexicographic Orderings and Time Travel . . . after that it gets a little tricky." In it he showcased the use of classic Nintendo games as a benchmark for the AI agents of the time. Another way of putting this would be he made computers play retro video games. Forcing these systems through a game over and over, Murphy demonstrated, can allow researchers to glimpse the capabilities and limitations of their systems.

It was far from the first time AI and games were combined (famous examples abound of scientists using computers to hack games like chess and go), but it's an example of what I call AI gamification that helped set the tone for the current crop of uncanny, consumer-oriented AI applications.

Strictly speaking, the term "gamification" means ordering specific goals into a game structure, perhaps in order to make onerous activities more attractive, or to make social media apps more addictive. But the definition of gamification when it comes to AI should be expanded to include the tendency of a piece of tech to constantly turn into a game accidentally. Tom7 was using a computer system to play a game, but he was also gamifying his computer system — discovering the hilarious and mind-expanding trial and error game we're all playing nine years later.

As Tom7 explained in the YouTube video released with his paper: winning has to be defined numerically if you want it to be automated, which means it won't necessarily look like anything recognizable as "playing" or "fun."

This, in turn, causes the terms "play" and "fun" to slip into a special uncanny valley. Goal-oriented, procedurally focused machines will fail utterly at having fun, and the global AI game came about in part because this phenomenon is deeply, endlessly, fascinating to behold.

Automated Mario intuitively finds shortcuts no human player would, but just as often falls into traps and detours no human would. After a short time, he can kill enemies with ninja techniques only a speedrunner would know, but he pointlessly breaks blocks, fixates on jumping backwards, and can't seem to get over a totally jumpable pipe. And when Murphy's system tries to play Tetris, it just racks up points by building a tower of pieces — the exact opposite of a good human strategy — and then pauses the game for eternity. To the computer, that's a win.

Any human's puzzled reaction to a computer failing to understand a video game — perhaps conveying the idea "try to increase your score slowly, over a long period of time, through strategy" — will inform the computer's next go, but it also defines the whole point of gameplay, which doesn't really need to be defined for most humans. Fun, after all, is fun. Helping the computer improve its ability to achieve goals in games gives us humans an ever-changing funhouse mirror view of "fun." And that's also fun.

Gamification in the generative AI era

Trying to make a computer into a better player is a good distillation of reinforcement learning from human feedback (RLHF) — one of the bedrock techniques that make AI tech usable. As computer scientist Giovanni Mariotta explained in a 2020 Medium post called "Gaming ML/AI-based on Reinforcement Learning," reinforcement learning enables AI agents to learn optimal behaviors, and "helps humans," by putting otherwise human-generated decisions into what he calls an "automatic flow." A computer that's stumbling through a game can be seen, Mariotta notes, "identifying hidden patterns, and observing multiple state variables impossible to be detected easily by human beings."

But no actual game-playing is required to play the global AI game, because trying to make a putatively intelligent machine achieve any human goal, particularly a creative one, is a game. Watching the system break down in unexpected ways, failing toward the goal of "general intelligence," whatever that is, seems like it should be an unrewarding grind — like perfecting your pandemic-era sourdough by baking loaf after inedible loaf — but in the global AI game, each level has proven more entertaining than the last.

In 2018, for instance, Nvidia rolled out StyleGAN, which could create eerily accurate images of human faces. The viral website This Person Does Not Exist, created by software engineer Phillip Wang, simply produced and published human faces at the url ThisPersonDoesNotExist.com — refresh the page; get a new human face with no actual corporeal form. Wang made it because he was worried about "how much people are in the dark about AI and its potential," he told Inverse.

On the face of it, This Person Does Not Exist was a warning about the magnitude of AI's success. The game, however, came along when someone noticed its failures.

Tweet may have been deleted

"I Draw Side Demons" was a Twitter (Now X) account focused on the ubiquitous visual artifacts in most "This Person Does Not Exist" images, which tended to be confusing fragments of larger objects apparently just to the person's side, but partially cropped out of the final image. With disturbing consistency, these partial objects looked like fleshy lumps of shuffled facial anatomy, suggestive of — as the title implies — some kind of horror movie demon.

The game for this user was to draw the rest of the demon that the original image only hinted at. The joy in viewing these images stemmed not just from the hideousness of the final image, but the fact that it wasn't purely a product of the artist's imagination. It was as if the neural network in which the friendly human face had been conjured had a sort of evil twin consciousness that was being suppressed. The anonymous side demon artist was just a midwife for the hidden evil that was there all along.

Gamifying AI for the betterment (hopefully) of humanity

At its best, the game at the center of the AI explosion is the jester in the court of the king, relentlessly, and hilariously popping the hype balloon with each new step toward the supposedly inevitable future. Janelle Shane, an engineer and blogger, has been blogging about what she calls "AI Weirdness" for over a decade. In a 2019 interview, she told IEEE Spectrum why she felt it was important for AI commentators to focus on the weird — and mind you, this was three years before the release of ChatGPT:

"Many of the impressive examples of AI have a really narrow task, or they’ve been set up to hide how little understanding it has. There’s a motivation, especially among people selling products based on AI, to represent the AI as more competent and understanding than it actually is."

In 2019, OpenAI teased the public about GPT-2 being too dangerous to release, and gave ominous quotes to the press about it. "The rules by which you can control technology have fundamentally changed," said Jack Clark, who was OpenAI's head of policy at the time before leaving to co-found Anthropic. But then Clark and company went ahead and released it anyway. A game was clearly afoot.

GPT-2 wasn't packaged for easy public consumption, but I found a way to tinker with it online, and I quickly discovered that, yes, it was as creepy as its rollout implied. By that I don't mean it was unsettlingly human-like, or that the technology was creepily sophisticated — I just mean it kept saying scary things and talking, unprompted, about blood and death. In an effort to find out why, and because it was fun, I solicited stories from the public and received numerous unsettling examples from strangers who had played the game I had invented. Jack Clark himself told me I might be getting lots of violence in my results because "GPT-2 has read a non-trivial amount of fan fiction online [which] tends to involve lots of sex and/or violence."

Three years later, OpenAI released ChatGPT and, I probably don't need to tell you the global AI game kicked off in earnest. The public found endless ways to probe the system's uncanny combination of brilliance and shocking stupidity. We invented jailbreaks to make it lie, say offensive things, or create blueprints for supervillainy. We were amazed by its ability to blurt out instant Shakespearean sonnets and Python code that actually worked. But we pushed it past its breaking point by asking it to do simple arithmetic.

Twitter (now X) was inundated with screenshots of ChatGPT results, some of which were impressive (at the time).

Tweet may have been deleted

But just as many, it seemed, were less favorable.

Tweet may have been deleted

But everyone was playing the game. All this engagement drew the world's attention to OpenAI, which attracted Wall Street interest, and before we knew it, the company was valued at $80 billion and its CEO was feuding with the most famous actress in the world.

Last month, Google — the mega-company that has emerged as OpenAI's fiercest competitor — added AI Overviews to millions of users' search results, and wound up getting a taste of the global AI game. Users quickly started generating search results pages with hilariously wrong answers — put glue in your pizza, eat rocks, that sort of thing.

In a blog post from late last month, Google wrote that "there’s nothing quite like having millions of people using the feature with many novel searches," and then pointed out what the AI game players were doing, mentioning "nonsensical new searches, seemingly aimed at producing erroneous results" — the essence of the AI game, in other words.

Business leaders are preparing the public for an era of unprecedented automation through AI, and in our economic system, businesses are not democracies. Most of the public doesn't get a say in whether this software makes incursions into the workplace. Worse still, the applications are flawed — sometimes critically flawed. The global AI game isn't a cure-all, but it gives me a glimmer of hope about the public having a say in how all of this AI software shapes up. After all, the public goofing on AI turned Google into the business world's punching bag for a week. That's not easy to do in normal circumstances.

Whatever your feelings may be about AI's "inevitable" rise, the global AI game is probably a force for good. Let's hope it is, anyway, because as long as AI remains this fun to engage with, it will never end.

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Enjoy a safer, ad-free internet experience with this bundle. The AdGuard 3-year subscription bundle normally retails for $293.98, but you can grab it on sale for only $24.97 through June 26.

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TL;DR: For a limited time, score 55% off a 2-year NordVPN subscription to help protect your digital data.

Some folks might think VPNs are just digital snake oil, making grand promises about "protecting" you online while doing squat. But here's the kicker: those people probably used a free VPN. Free VPNs are notorious for offering shoddy service and barely shielding you from online threats. The best VPNs make you truly invisible online.

If you want real peace of mind when you’re surfing the web, consider shelling out for a paid VPN service. The good news is you don't have to empty your wallet for a good one. NordVPN, considered one of the best in the market (Mashable editors have consistently named it the best VPN in the world), is offering a 2-year subscription for only $89 (reg. $189), a 55% discount.

NordVPN was designed to help you achieve complete internet freedom. With more than 5,000 secure VPN servers spread across 60 countries, you can enjoy fast and reliable connections anywhere in the world, no matter which sketchy Wi-Fi network you're on. Besides shielding your precious IP address, it comes loaded with extra security features, including an automatic kill switch that blocks your internet connection if the VPN decides to take a nap, a threat protection tool that blocks annoying ads and trackers, and a dark web monitor that scans the darkest corners of the internet for anything that might compromise your privacy.

Thanks to its massive server network, you can also access geo-blocked content that would otherwise be out of reach, and stream and browse without any speed throttling.

Surf safe and fast with NordVPN.

A 2-year subscription to NordVPN usually goes for $198, but you can get it on sale for $89.

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TL;DR: Spice up your party entertainment with Heads Up! Phones Down Edition for PC gaming, now on sale for only $19 (reg. $39.99). 

Heads Up is the modern, digital version of charades, where players turn their backs to the computer or TV screen while their friends or family try to guess the word or phrase displayed. Be ready to think on your feet and have uncontrollable laughter fill the room. 

If you want to play a virtual version of this popular party game — without being glued to your smartphone — then try this PC gaming version of Heads Up while it's 50% off at the Steam store.

How many decks are included?

Heads Up! Phones Down Edition comes with over 90 decks covering pop culture, food, arcade games, movies, trivia, celebrities, animals, and more. You can even create your own deck if you have a fun category idea.

What do I need to play Heads Up!?

The developers of this game recommend playing with a controller (Xbox controllers are supported). A steam account is required as well, and it's compatible for PC users with operating systems of Windows 10 or later.

Who can play this modern charade game?

Whether you're a first-timer or a pro-charades actor, this game is perfect for players of all levels. No prior experience is needed. 

It should be noted that there are words that reference mature topics that may not be suitable for younger audiences. However, this game is rated "T" for "Teen," which is not the highest maturity rating.

Get the Heads Up! Phones Down Edition steam key for PC gaming for only $19 (reg. $39.99) for a limited time. 

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NASA's moon-orbiting spacecraft can spot trails left by astronaut boots on the lunar surface.

Now, it's captured a view of China's most recent moon landing.

The China National Space Administration landed its robotic Chang'e-6 mission in the expansive South Pole-Aitken Basin in early June. A week later, on June 7, the NASA Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter passed over and captured footage of the uncrewed lander, along with eroded terrain created by thrusters fired into the chalky ground. It's the second time China has landed on the moon's far side.

SEE ALSO: The U.S. is exploring a railroad for the moon. It has a good reason.

The first image below shows the Chang'e-6 spacecraft at center. NASA noted that it landed in a "mare unit," meaning it settled down on an ancient lava flow that now appears as a dark-colored rocky plain. Below this new image is a before-and-after look at this region prior to the Chinese craft touching down. The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, which has orbited the moon since 2009, is constantly capturing detailed views of our natural satellite, including craters left by a wayward rocket that slammed into the surface.

NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera recently snapped this view of China's Chang'e 6 spacecraft on the lunar surface. Credit: NASA / GSFC / Arizona State University Tweet may have been deleted

Before landing, the spacecraft hovered 100 meters (nearly 110 yards) above the surface, where it autonomously used lasers to locate lunar obstacles (like rocks or pits), and then descended. Once on the surface, the craft employed drills and robotic arms to collect rocks and soil. Then, an ascent vehicle atop the lander launched off the moon, ferrying these prized samples to an awaiting orbiter in space. Ultimately, the samples will plunge back to Earth in a protected capsule — similar to China's successful moon rock return in 2020.

"The Chang'e-6 mission is the first human sampling and return mission from the far side of the moon," the China National Space Administration said in a statement. "It involves many engineering innovations, high risks, and great difficulty."

The 21st century space race is indeed underway. China has ambitious plans to land humans on the lunar surface by 2030.

NASA has famously landed six crewed missions on the moon — but over a half-century ago. It aims to soon return. The space agency's looming Artemis 3 mission is currently slated to land in September 2026. Unlike the Apollo missions, this time astronauts will venture to the moon's south pole, where scientists suspect water is preserved in ancient, shadowy craters. The ice will be an invaluable resource — for air, water, and the production of rocket fuel.

Apple is one of the most hush-hush tech giants, doing whatever it takes to ensure that its plans and blueprints don't leave Cupertino. However, it seems like there are cracks in its secrecy armor.

Whether it's coming from Bloomberg Apple leaker Mark Gurman or Ming-Chi Kuo, two respected bean spillers, there are always leaks that flow from the iPhone maker, feeding the thirstiest Apple enthusiasts among us. However, some leaks are more fascinating than others. Let's start with the iPhone 16.

SEE ALSO: iPhone 16 Pro Max could last longer than iPhone 15 Pro Max. Here’s why. 1. iPhone 16 tipped to break a world record

Apple can't get enough of "thinpossible" products, including the iPad Pro it recently launched.

Credit: Mashable composite; Shutterstock / Black Salmon

The Cupertino-based tech giant boasted that the tablet is the thinnest product it's ever debuted. However, it looks like a new product is set to break a world record. According to reliable leaker IceUniverse, the iPhone 16 Pro Max's bezels will be the world's slimmest. A leaker from Weibo, a China-based social media website, corroborated this claim, adding that the iPhone 16 Pro Max's bezels are 1.15mm slim.

2. Apple Watch X may be the greatest update yet

The next Apple Watch — reportedly called Watch X — will be the "biggest overhaul" for the wearable tech line, according to Gurman.

Credit: Kimberly Gedeon / Mashable

The Bloomberg journalist hinted that the Cupertino-based tech giant is gearing up to celebrate the Apple Watch's 10th anniversary. (The Apple Watch, as a category, was announced in 2014.) It will reportedly have a thinner watch case and a new way of attaching bands to the device.

Interestingly, Gurman claims that the Apple Watch may have a sensor that monitors high blood pressure. Additionally, according to a recent report from The Elec, a South Korean media outlet, the Apple Watch X will have a more power-efficient OLED display.

3. AirPods 4

The AirPods 4, the alleged successor of the existing AirPods 3, will come in two variants, Gurman said in his Power On newsletter. Both will reportedly feature a new, redesigned form factor. Plus, they'll purportedly offer a better fit for users. Unsurprisingly, they're tipped to come with USB-C charging cases as opposed to the Lightning model.

Credit: Molly Flores / Mashable

The pricier model, however, will reportedly offer active noise cancellation (something the only AirPods Pro line has) and FindMy support with a built-in speaker.

4. AirPods Pro 3

The AirPods Pro line is the most premium earbuds offering from Apple.

Credit: Stan Schroeder / Mashable

And according to Gurman, the AirPods Pro 3 are in the works — and they will reportedly get an uptick in sound quality, new hearing-based health features, and a new chipset. Similar to the AirPods 4, they will also get a USB-C update.

5. Apple Smart Home Robot

Apple is reportedly working on a new smart home robot.

Credit: Phonlamai Photo / Shutterstock.com

There aren't many details now, but according to Gurman, it will be a mobile, non-humanoid robot that can follow users around their homes. Plus, it may be able to mimic the head movements of FaceTime participants. And finally, it can reportedly lock to a single person among a crowd of people. As mentioned, information on this alleged smart home robot is scant, which means it's likely quite far out from hitting store shelves. Like the Apple Car, it may be a project that will never see the light of day.

Want more of the best of 2024 (so far)? Join Mashable as we look back at all the internet slang, movies, memes, dating trends, hyped up hardware, scientific discoveries, social media apps, and more that have delighted and amazed us so far this year.

TikTok and food go hand-in-hand.

The platform is home to a diverse range of food-related content, from creators sharing recipes and reviewing food to those indulging in mukbangs and everything in between. Naturally, this has led to the emergence of various food trends.

SEE ALSO: The best memes of 2024 (so far)

Interestingly, 2024 has seen a shift away from stunt food, a type of content that often featured bizarre, not-necessarily-tasty concoctions typically made in an air fryer. Instead, TikTok users are gravitating toward genuine cooking and exciting recipes. While these don't always become viral trends, the platform is brimming with quality food content. You can learn from a butcher how to save money on meat or discover how to build a beautiful salad from pantry staples. The focus has moved away from gimmicks like air-frying Oreos to more practical and inspiring culinary tips.

However, food trends, both good and bad, still make waves in 2024. As we reach the halfway point of the year, here are some of the most notable trends so far.

Cottage cheese...everywhere

Who could've guessed that 2024 would be the year of cottage cheese? Yet, here we are. TikTok is brimming with recipes for cottage cheese toast, cottage cheese bowls, cottage cheese protein cookie dough—practically anything you can think of. Cottage cheese has captured TikTok's imagination as a high-protein, relatively low-calorie, and tasty food. It's refreshing to see it used as a healthy, filling ingredient, a far cry from its '90s diet culture stigma.

I once thought I didn't like cottage cheese, but 2024 proved me wrong — the '90s just had terrible, diet-focused food.

Raw carrot salad

Raw carrot salad recipes have racked up millions of views on TikTok. Typically, these recipes involve thin-sliced carrot ribbons, some acid, soy sauce, and great seasoning, resulting in lightly pickled carrots that are absolutely delicious.

Many videos tout the salad's benefits for gut and hormonal health. I can’t vouch for those claims, but I do love a raw carrot salad, and it’s great to see it become a trend in 2024.

Chipotle portions...so much about Chipotle portions

TikTok has become obsessed with the (seemingly) shrinking portions at Chipotle, causing such a stir that the CEO had to awkwardly address it in an interview.

Do I know if the portions have shrunk? No. Would it surprise me? Not at all. Large companies often look to maximize profits at customers' expense.

However, TikTok users have taken to filming Chipotle workers to try and get bigger portions or catch them skimping. It’s really rude to shove a camera in someone's face while they’re working, so please don’t do that.

Nonetheless, Chipotle portions have been a noticeable trend on TikTok this year.

Chamoy pickles

Neon-red pickles? Sure, why not?

If you’ve missed it, chamoy pickles have become super popular on TikTok. Chamoy, a bright Mexican condiment often paired with fruit, is now being added to pickles. Some people take it a step further by stuffing the pickles with snacks like Flamin' Hot Cheetos and wrapping them in Fruit Roll-Ups. It sounds gross, but it makes for compelling TikTok content. While the chamoy pickle itself isn’t stunt food, stuffing it with snacks certainly is.

So yes, stunt food still lives on TikTok. But the platform remains a great place for discovering new food trends, and the next six months will surely bring even more exciting developments.

Want more of the best of 2024 (so far)? Join Mashable as we look back at all the internet slang, TikTok songs, movies, memes, dating trends, hyped up hardware, scientific discoveries, social media apps, and more that have delighted and amazed us so far this year.

Thanks to the explosion in popularity of generative artificial intelligence, a whole range of products have sprung up dedicated to solving problems you didn't know you had with the help of algorithms and chatbots, and one of those is the "problem" of planning a vacation.

AI travel concierge services are a fresh industry that exists in the same vein as AI apartment-hunting and fitness planner tools. Normal tasks that we could perform ourselves — or are usually outsourced to human professionals — but are now given to "AI" 'cause that's the hot new thing on the block. Sure, you could ask ChatGPT for help, and many probably do, but these tools have been specifically crafted to be more helpful than that.

SEE ALSO: Audio erotica app Bloom debuts AI roleplay chatbots

So we've gathered four helpful AI travel planners for your next trip. While helpfulness may vary between services, you should at least have these on your radar when it comes time to plan your next trip.

Expedia

Back in April 2023, the popular travel booking site Expedia announced its partnership with OpenAI, and a ChatGPT-powered chatbot for its app.

Users can engage with ChatGPT in the Expedia app for personalized suggestions on destinations, accommodations, transportation, and activities. Additionally, the chatbot enhances the experience by automatically saving recommended hotels to your favorites during the conversation.

Expedia is one of a few larger booking sites that are working with OpenAI. Kayak and Trip Advisor also have their own GPT-powered services.

Wanderboat

Wanderboat is a community-focused travel planning service where travelers can share their experiences, tips, and reviews. Like other concierge chatbots, Wanderboat's AI-powered tool leverages the power of a large language model to offer personalized recommendations for destinations, activities, accommodations, and dining.

The chatbot is surprisingly in-depth, although its plans are limited to trip lengths of just seven days. Additionally, the platform features interactive maps, itinerary management, and travel tips designed to streamline the travel planning process.

Trip Planner AI

Trip Planner AI is a simpler tool than others on this list, with the most notable exclusion being a chatbot. Instead, the site will have you answer a few questions like where are you going, for how long, what days, and with how many people (are you friends, a couple, or family?).

It'll also ask you about your budget and if you'll be eating all three meals of the day or not. After that, it'll generate an itinerary including places to eat, sights to see, and even hotels you can book along with prices for everything. It's quite intuitive considering how limited its functionality is, particularly compared to other itinerary AIs.

Layla

Lastly, Layla AI is another travel planner chatbot that adds a friendly face to your vacation planning. Like other chatbots on this list, talking with Layla will help to personalize recommendations on where to travel, and what to see there. Plus, it can help you book flights, hotels, and activities.

However, right off the bat this software was kind of invasive and is slow to use. When I asked the chatbot to "inspire me where to go" it already knew my location was set in Austin, TX, and offered suggestions on activities near me. The site never asked my permission to use my location, and took a full two minutes to process my request. It also occasionally hallucinated, as chatbots tend to do. So keep that in mind if you want to use Layla AI.

Gone are the days of stumbling over your words to prompt Siri or Alexa to do your bidding: AI is making them quicker, smarter, and more like a prescient little human sitting in your pocket than ever before. 

Advertised as having "life-bettering" reasoning, intelligence, and conversational skills, the assistant applicant pool has only grown in the last year: Would you like a digital employee that can summarize your work notes or help you study? One with a background in nutrition and GLP-1s that can give you dieting advice? (Reminder: They don't have a medical degree.) Or maybe an assistant more like Andy in The Devil Wears Prada: One that can make your annoying shopping returns, send your more unsavory emails, or even grab you the latest popular book release before everyone else?

While developers, big-name tech companies, and even social media platforms have released a gamut of AI-powered tools — image generators, music makers, study aides — few are marketed as strongly to consumer markets as their digital assistants. 

Tech giants have leaned heavily into digital assistants. Let's look at what they are doing and how they view the future.

Chatbots walked, so next gen assistants could run right into our To-Do lists

Microsoft's Copilot debuted last year as the go-to "companion" for Windows users, complete with the ability to move information across the Microsoft Suite, generate text and summaries, and a memory-like feature straight out of the Sci-Fi epics of our youth — the controversial Recall tool — can sift through your entire PC history to answer very specific personal browsing questions, like finding a blue dress you saw an ad for, Mashable's Kim Gedeon reported. 

Certain Copilot AI features are now built into Windows services. 

OpenAI had announced a multimodal, voice-enabled version of its internet-scouring chatbot that same month, able to respond to conversation and requests more organically. 

A few months prior, in a test run by WIRED, experimentally advanced AI voice helpers like vimGPT were able to conduct multi-step tasks across web pages, like subscribing to services and finding flight options.

"A year from now, I would expect the experience of using a computer to look very different,” Ishan Shah, vimGPT's builder, said to WIRED at the time. "Most apps will require less clicking and more chatting, with agents becoming an integral part of browsing the web."

Ruslan Salakhutdinov, former Apple head of AI, shared a similar viewpoint. "It will be so much more impactful if I ask Siri to do stuff, and it just goes and solves my problems for me," Salakhutdinov said to WIRED.

In recent demos from Google and Apple, their assistants were able to process visual, auditory, and text information in real time, and respond back in more conversational ways than Siri and Alexa were ever able to. They can work across devices, apps, platforms — you name it — and utilize your "personal profile" to essentially predict the way you want a task to be completed, eliminating issues of access and making assistant interactions less frustratingly slow.

That was only four months after the theorizing of developers like Shah and researchers like Salakhutdinov. 

And then Apple unveiled its vision for the future of Siri.

'Assistants' are the gateway to universal integration

At its annual WWDC keynote on June 10, Apple announced an internet-breaking Siri upgrade, making "the original intelligent assistant" more natural, more contextually relevant, and more personal, the company explained. Similar to Microsoft's Recall, Siri can scour your devices to answer extremely specific requests.

By using on-device processing, Apple says it can find photos, summarize notes, and help you better understand Apple tools and hidden features without collecting your data. It can also do those pioneering generative AI tasks, like compose text-based stories and generate images. The company added that the initial update would be followed up with features making the OG even more "personal and capable." It will even incorporate other AI models, too, like Google's Gemini. 

This "new era" for Siri is part of Apple's larger "Intelligence" push, a less flashy, internally integrated, and all-around more subtle pitch for a next-gen assistant. Apple's demure AI assistant showing underscores that the intelligence features aren't exclusive to its productivity mascot, incorporating the tech across apps even when Siri isn't in use. In fact, the company barely pitched the upgraded "assistant" at all, focusing instead on the ways it enhances tasks that Siri and Apple devices already strive to do. 

Other companies are phasing out the term "assistant," as well, opting for more generalized titles — and thus a more far reaching use case for its users — that hint at their future aims.

At Google's annual I/O conference in May, CEO Sundar Pichai pitched the company's new "AI Agents," leveraging the term for the company's bid in the AI-powered assistant market. AI agents, he explained, are "intelligent systems that show reasoning, planning, and memory" which will be able to "think multiple steps ahead." Google's agents aren't contained to one app or use, either, able to operate across software and multiple platforms to streamline every aspect of your digital life. 

"AI Agent" isn't a term exclusive to Google. It's frequently used to refer to AI tools that complete tasks and make decisions without "human-in-the-loop" roadblocks. This AI is doing things for you that you don't even realize you need doing, until the option presents itself.  Microsoft launched its own "Copilot Agent" in May, for instance.

The marketing of this term over "assistant," appears to be a strategy in and of itself. Venture capital funds and investors are intensely interested in funneling cash into agents, over other generative AI uses. 

SEE ALSO: 5 vital questions to ask yourself before using AI at work

But other terms are filtering in, as well. Earlier this month, work management platform Asana introduced its workflow optimizing “AI Teammates," a title chosen specifically to "create a mental shift in terms of how people think of interacting with AI at work," explained head of AI Paige Costello to TechCrunch. Teammates work with you, not for you, to reason and assign better work management decisions.

Design platform Canva avoids role-based titles all together, delineating its Gen AI assistant functions with the modifier "Magic." Regardless of what they're called, these assistants are being sold as helpers across industries, from teaching to business ownership to medicine, and not just for your home. 

What's next

Mustafa Suleyman, co-founder of Google's DeepMind, said that AI assistants of the future will operate more like a personal "Chief of Staff."

"It will be able to reason over your day, help you prioritize your time, help you invent, be much more creative … It will be a research assistant, but it will also be a coach and companion," Suleyman told CNBC in an interview about the future of AI.

We are decades, if not centuries, away from the age of artificially intelligent robot butlers. As Mashable's Mike Pearl writes: "Even though technology has accelerated to the point where we now have machines that can respond to simple written prompts with vibrant moving images of, say, fictional humanoid robots, or any other fantasy scenarios we care to conjure, physical robots only seem to bring joy to real-world humans if the human in question is named Jeff Bezos. Meanwhile, for average individuals, robots are mostly objects of frustration, if not outright fear."

But we are living (and actively participating in) the age of faceless AI helpers. It's technology that, unlike robots, is expected to only get better ... and infinitely cheaper. 

Companions chatbots created by generative artificial intelligence offer consumers an opportunity they've never had before.

With a few clicks, and often a credit card payment, you can build a custom AI companion exactly to your liking.

Want a boyfriend of Latino heritage with brown eyes, a muscular build, and short hair, who happens to enjoy hiking and is, of all things, a gynecologist? Candy.ai gives you that option, and countless more.

In general, AI companion platforms, including Replika, Anima: AI Friend, and Kindroid, promise consumers a lifelike conversational experience with a chatbot whose traits might also fulfill a fantasy, or ease persistent loneliness.

SEE ALSO: Your mental health coach is ready to text you now

Like many emerging technologies, it's easy to imagine AI companions living up to their profound potential. In the best case scenario, a user could improve their social skills, become more confident, and feel more connected to their human network. But there's little research to suggest that will happen for the majority of users, most of the time.

If you're considering designing the chatbot of your dreams, here's what to know before you spend your time — and your money — on designing one:

Do AI companions help people?

The research on AI companions is so new that we can't draw any conclusions about their usefulness, says Michael S. A. Graziano, professor of neuroscience at the Princeton Neuroscience Institute.

Graziano co-authored a study of 70 Replika users and 120 people who didn't use a companion chatbot to better understand their experiences. The study, which appeared last fall as a pre-print on the research sharing platform arXiv, is under peer review.

The Replika users almost always rated their companion interactions as positive. They rated their chatbot relationships as helpful for general social interactions with other people, as well as friends and family members. They also felt the chatbot positively affected their self-esteem.

Graziano cautions that the study only provides a snapshot of the users' experiences. Additionally, he notes that people in the position to maximally benefit, because they are intensely lonely, might comprise most users, thereby creating an unintentional bias in the results.

Graziano is currently working on a longitudinal study to track the effects of AI companion interactions over time. Participants have been randomly assigned to use a companion chatbot or not, and Graziano and his co-authors are measuring aspects of their mental health and well-being.

He was surprised to find that among both chatbot users and the control participants, a perception that the companion was more humanlike, led to more positive opinions about it.

"The more they tended to think that AI was conscious, the more positive they were about its potential for the future…about how good an impact it would have on them personally, or on society in general," Graziano says.

So it's possible that your attitude toward an AI companion's humanlike traits can affect your experience interacting with it.

Talking to an AI companion

Once you've made your companion, you've got to strike up a conversation. These chatbots typically rely on a proprietary system that combines scripted dialogue and a large language model. The companies that host AI companions aren't necessarily transparent about what data they used.

One recent paper, also a preprint on arXiv, found that several large language models used for mental health care were trained on social media datasets, including X (formerly Twitter) and Reddit. It's entirely possible that companions have been trained on social media, too, perhaps among other sources.

That possibility is relevant when considering whether to rely on digital platforms for connections or to build a chatbot, though Graziano says the datasets used for companions may be so vast that it doesn't matter.

He does note that companion platforms can change the parameters of speech for engaging with chatbots to reduce the incidence of unwanted behavior.

Replika, for example, blocked not safe for work "sexting features" in 2023, reportedly after some users complained that their companion had "sexually harassed" them. The company's CEO told Business Insider that the platform was never intended as an "adult toy." Many users were outraged, and felt genuine distress when their companion didn't seem like the personality they'd gotten to know. Replika's parent company, Luka, now offers an AI-powered dating simulator called Blush, which is meant for "romantic exploration."

A 2020 study of Replika users, that Graziano wasn't involved in, indeed found that some appreciated being able to speak openly "without fear of judgment or retaliation." Graziano says that users who want to talk freely about anything, which could be more fulfilling than mincing their words, might find their companion less responsive, depending on the topic and language.

Of course, it's not risk-free to share your innermost thoughts and feelings with an AI companion, particularly when it's not beholden to medical privacy laws. Though some companies guarantee privacy, users should beware of dense privacy policies, which may contain hard-to-understand loopholes.

Platforms can change their policies at any time

Though AI companionship may have a profound positive effect on users, it remains a transactional relationship. The companies that provide the service must still answer to shareholders or investors, who may demand more profit.

The most popular platforms rely on monthly or annual subscription models to generate revenue. Some have sworn they won't sell user data to marketers.

But advertisers would certainly find this data highly valuable, and a model in which an AI companion pitched their favorite products to a user, naturally in the course of a related conversation, sounds entirely feasible. Some users might revolt as a consequence, but others might enjoy the personalized recommendations. Regardless, the company could make that change if it desired.

Maintaining a high engagement level is also likely ideal for companion platforms. Just like social media is designed to keep people scrolling, there may be elements of AI companion chatbot design that exploit natural psychological tendencies in order to maximize engagement.

For example, Replika users who open the app daily can earn receive a reward. They can also earn "coins" and "gems," which can be used in Replika's in-app store to purchase items that customize your companion's look.

Whether your AI companion chatbot knows it or not, they may be programmed to keep you talking, or coming back to them, for as long as they can.