Overview
- Aravind Srinivas issued the warning during a Polsky Center fireside chat at the University of Chicago.
- He cautioned that increasingly lifelike, memory‑enabled chatbots can pull users into a synthetic reality and make minds easily manipulable.
- Srinivas said Perplexity will avoid companionship bots and concentrate on trustworthy sources and real‑time content.
- Perplexity recently agreed to a $400 million deal to power Snapchat search, with rollout targeted for early 2026, according to Snap.
- Rival offerings continue to grow, including xAI’s $30‑per‑month AI “friends,” as surveys report 72% of teens have tried companions and about half use them monthly.