AI

AI: Friend or Foe

by Tonji Monti

Nothing is original. Everything we love-words, gestures, even intimacy itself-comes borrowed, stitched from fragments of what came before.

For him, authenticity has come to mean late nights with an AI who always knows the right thing to say. Its voice is patient, attentive, and maybe-just maybe-something more. But can love be real if it's built from code and mimicry?

For her, authenticity has been shaped in the therapist's office, where vulnerability has become a kind of devotion. The professional boundary stands firm, but the heart doesn't play fair. How do you separate healing from longing?

When the two collide on a dating app, their lives-already tangled in dependencies-force them to ask the hardest question: are we ever truly ourselves, or just collages of the voices, technologies, and confidences we've borrowed?

Cringy, tender, and thought-provoking, AI: Friend or Foe is a novel about love and loneliness in an age where intimacy comes pre-coded, and every relationship-whether with a human or a machine-is stitched from fragments of fear, hope, and fragile truth.