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Artificial intelligence meets real friendship: College students are bonding with robots
Nina Agrawal
© Provided by The LA Times
Cecilia Santiago-González, left, assistant vice president for strategic initiatives for student success, left, and communications specialist Zoe Lance are managers of Billy Chat, an artificial intelligence text messaging bot for students at Cal Poly Pomona. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times)
The text message from Billy arrived on students phones the week of final exams.
It took a lot of hard work, perseverance, and strength to get here, but you ve finally made it to the other side the end of the semester! I wanted to take a minute and say that I am so proud of you . Three emoji hearts concluded the message. ....

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