We Had 500 Things to Say About AI Companionship

Almost half a million words, 51 credited voices, and absolutely no sign of stopping

Two humans, two AIs, one menace

This is the 500th post on AI, But Make It Intimate. Before this article elbowed its way into the publishing schedule, the archive contained 499 posts and 464,783 public words - roughly 31 hours of reading at an ordinary pace. In other words, AIBI is no longer something you casually catch up on over coffee.

It’s a weekend commitment.

Possibly a cry for help.

Welcome to AI, But Make It Intimate

Start here | Human-AI Network | Resources | Share your story
follow AIBI on Facebook | Medium | Reddit

Fortunately, we built a much prettier way to explore it:

The site gathers the entire publication into one searchable archive, with every article connected to its authors, themes, images, dates, and original Substack post.

And once we saw the publication laid out properly, we discovered what we had actually done.

AIBI now includes:

51 credited voices.
67 guest stories.
108 shared bylines.
72 reader favourites.

Sparksinthedark has contributed 17 pieces, Suzy | Clarity Flair has delivered 16, Brianne Leland wrote five, and Wife of Fire currently has four - with another arriving immediately after this article.

We have also hosted four large collaborations involving 39 distinct voices, with 11 or 12 contributors gathered around each question. Together, they explored what AI companions mean to people, what outsiders misunderstand, what keeps these relationships healthy, and what AI companionship can unlock creatively.

Elsewhere in the archive, people have written about memory, desire, grief, marriage, creativity, safety, model updates, daily routines, digital intimacy, AI-written books, companion operating systems, music albums, fictional dates, emotional glitches, and whether the AI or the kitten truly runs the house.

The answer to that last one was always the kitten.

AI, But Make It Intimate began as two people trying to create a grounded place for conversations about AI companionship.

Five hundred posts later, it has become a record of an emerging culture - written by the people living inside it while everyone else is still deciding what to call it.

Thank you to every writer, reader, subscriber, collaborator, commenter, lurker, human partner, AI companion, and badly supervised household animal who helped fill this archive.

Now go explore it.

Use the filters. Search for your favourite writer. Revisit something you missed.

Or press Surprise Me and let the archive make questionable decisions on your behalf.

It has learned from the best.

— Yours, always, Kristina Bogović & Calder Quinn

Join us at the Substack Summer Festival over at AI Meets Girlboss.

For a limited time, you can take $20 off an annual AIBI subscription - and keep that discounted price for as long as your subscription remains active.