Dr. Marisa Tschopp explores our evolving, often odd, expectations for AI companions while embracing radical empathy, resisting relentless PR and trusting in humanity.   Marisa and Kimberly discuss recent research into AI-based conversational agents, the limits of artificial companionship, implications for mental health therapy, the importance of radical empathy and differentiation, why users defy simplistic categorization, corporate incentives and rampant marketing gags, reasons for optimism, and retaining trust in human connections. A transcript of this episode is here.  Dr. Marisa Tschopp is a Psychologist, a Human-AI Interaction Researcher at scip AG and an ardent supporter of Women in AI. Marisa’s research focuses on human-AI relationships, trust in AI, agency, behavioral performance assessment of conversational systems (A-IQ), and gender issues in AI.   Additional Resources: The Impact of Human-AI Relationship Perception on Voice Shopping Intentions in Human Machine Collaboration  Publication  How do users perceive their relationship with conversational AI? Publication  KI als Freundin: Funktioniert eine Chatbot-Beziehung? TV Show (German, SRF)  Friends with AI? It’s complicated! TEDxBoston Talk