On AI companions, conversational voice interfaces, and the power of cute pets

It made me change my mind on my previous thesis that "chat is not the future of AI interfaces". I was led to 3 new beliefs: I've been playing with all the new AI image generation models, but have repeatedly been left with a feeling of blandness and "premium mediocrity". Many of these hyperrealistic human character images or perfectly impressionist paintings still fall in the uncanny valley for me. I decided to draw my own bunny in Figma. I was inspired by the first animal I learned how to draw in high school, the beloved Miffy character. There's something special about drawing and naming your own pet creation that adds a degree of emotional affinity. It reminded me of the IKEA effect, where people value products more if they helped create it themselves. I put my newly created bunny character in an iPhone app and made it the app icon for fun. The app did nothing except show the static image of my bunny. But I liked having the digital presence of it on my phone – my own Tamagotchi with n

It made me change my mind on my previous thesis that "chat is not the future of AI interfaces". I was led to 3 new beliefs: I've been playing with all the new AI image generation models, but have repeatedly been left with a feeling of blandness and "premium mediocrity". Many of these hyperrealistic human character images or perfectly impressionist paintings still fall in the uncanny valley for me. I decided to draw my own bunny in Figma. I was inspired by the first animal I learned how to draw in high school, the beloved Miffy character. There's something special about drawing and naming your