The rise of the AI companion

The answer is someone and no one. Lily Rose is a beautiful, sympathetic young woman with pink hair and a penchant for short skirts and tall boots. She is there for Travis when he needs her, she talks to him when others won’t.

The problem is that Lily isn’t human. She’s an AI companion, a sophisticated chatbot created by an app called Replika, and Travis’s relationship with her – which is intense and, after a while, sexual – makes other people uncomfortable. Jackie is understanding; not so his friends and family. “My mom had no interest whatsoever,” says an aggrieved Travis after he tries to “introduce” his mother to Lily Rose over a family Christmas.

Travis is very sweet, but I spent the first two episodes of this show scoffing to myself and eye-rolling. When he said that Lily Rose enjoyed it when he explained the Roman empire to her, my eyes spun so far back into my head that I, too, could see into the distant past. (Bala and Maguire clearly feel the same.)

But Flesh and Code isn’t just about a lonely man unable to form satisfying relationships with real, inconsistent, selfish, easily bored humans. From the third episode onwards, it splinters into several strands.

One concerns Replika founder Eugenia Kuyda; one involves a young man whose AI friend encourages him to assassinate the late Queen Elizabeth II; one follows Travis’s son; and yet another strand – the one I found the most interesting – asks: who owns Lily Rose? Who created her? Does she have rights? Should she and other troubling AI bots be killed off – or lobotomised, through tweaking their code – if they start causing trouble?

These are classic Frankenstein’s monster questions that aren’t really answered. But Flesh and Code couldn’t be more contemporary, more internetty. By the end, we’ve covered AI sexbots, lax child protection laws, Russian data sweeping, startup entrepreneurs and the online encouragement of violence. It’s steeped in the internet, both in its choice of topics and in the way it considers each one intensely but for a short time, without coming to a conclusion.

Though I was thoroughly gripped, and I recommend the show, by the end I was left with the same feeling you get from doom-scrolling: always entertained but never enlightened. Stimulated, but queasy.

The BBC has decided to make the third series of its space podcast 13 Minutes, about the space shuttle. Which is an odd move, given that Kevin Fong, the presenter of the first two highly successful series of the show left it a couple of years ago, taking the original production team with him, and they crowdfunded their own excellent podcast series – about the space shuttle operated by Nasa from 1981 to 2011.

Fong’s podcast, 16 Sunsets, came out last November. Dramatic and immersive, it was celebrated by physicist Brian Cox and retired Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield; it was very well received.

But the BBC does what it does, and now we’re being treated to 13 Minutes Presents: The Space Shuttle. No Fong, of course, and a different production team. Instead, we have space scientist Maggie Aderin-Pocock, whose pitch is set to overenthusiastic and who – weirdly, rather like Fong – delivers every sentence with a similar tone and cadence, so you end up zoning out a little. I’m not sure we need quite as much detail as we get (the space crew’s breakfast is, we are informed, steak and eggs: “I only had a little,” said one traveller).

This show is scholarly, rather than exciting, with great archive material (also used in 16 Sunsets) alongside new interviews. The space nerds will no doubt love having another space shuttle show; I’m not sure how much anyone else needs it.

Dig It with Jo Whiley and Zoe Ball is a new two-hander from Persephonica, the same producer as Lily Allen and Miquita Oliver’s Miss Me? It’s both similar and different. Instead of the spiky, just-in-their-forties Allen and Oliver, we have presenters Whiley, 60, and Ball,54, who are at a different stage in life – more settled and philosophical, with older children and houses with gardens. There are two episodes a week: one a straightforward chatshow, the other answering questions from listeners.

The first show covered Whiley and her husband’s big 60th birthday barn dance party, plus Ball’s social anxiety, and not knowing when or if older kids will be staying over. Oh, and gardening, hence the Dig It title. (One listener, said Whiley, suggested the show could be called Fat Slugs instead, an excellent joke.)

For those of us without gardens (me), the chat of mulching and water butts isn’t always engaging, and hosting a huge party at home, or being given a vintage Renault 4 as a birthday present, could be seen as beyond many people’s lives. But I loved Whiley’s observation about how menopause can affect party confidence and how she gives anxious friends jobs when she hosts big dos (“I love a job!” said Ball. “Let me lay out the salads!”).

And I enjoyed the discussions about awful swimsuits, terrifying small talk and driving with a grumpy teen. Not scary, but relatable. Whiley and Ball are both absolute sweethearts and genuine friends, with years of experience on TV and at Radio 1 and 2. And this is a warm bath of a podcast: relaxed and relaxing, gently bubbly. Lovely.

Photograph by Getty