What does it mean when artificial intelligence can make you feel something real?

In this episode, Dylan Curious explores the strange, emotional frontier between humans and machines — from viral AI avatars that say goodbye like old friends, to synthetic relationships reshaping entire cultures.

We’ll travel through the code and culture behind today’s AI companions — why America is building digital girlfriends while China perfects virtual boyfriends — and what these creations reveal about the societies that build them.

Plus: the science of synthetic data, the thermodynamics of thought, and a look at how intelligence itself might be nature’s final rebellion against entropy.