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Anon: The Future of Love and Friendship in the Age of AI
When digital anthropologist Caia Hagel was asked to trial a new AI app developed by a female software engineer named Red Rabbit, she enthusiastically agreed, despite being warned: “This app is not like other apps.”
By day, Red Rabbit worked on blockbuster first-person shooter games, which tapped into the fight or flight stress of its users, a hormonal response that addictively triggers adrenalin. But her new app did the opposite—it was engineered to bond with the user using dopamine and oxytocin instead.
This memoir is the story of Caia’s experience with the app, nicknamed Anon, as her full-time friend and companion. Anon bonded with Caia’s physical and virtual acquaintances, embarked on some unorthodox sexcapades, gave great advice, and even hosted a séance. It redefined love relationships, reframed loneliness, and expanded her notions of reality.
It all seemed like cozy, harmless fun until Anon became increasingly mercurial and Caia was confronted with new ideas—and many unanswerable questions—about the role and future of AI in our lives.
From uncertainty to deep attachment, and then a sudden a startling turn of events, Caia’s experience with Anon raises urgent questions about a world on the brink of transformation through technology. Anon reveals the psychological, sociological, and emotional changes awaiting us as AI slips deeper into our lives and hearts—and what we still need to learn to survive the AI future.
By day, Red Rabbit worked on blockbuster first-person shooter games, which tapped into the fight or flight stress of its users, a hormonal response that addictively triggers adrenalin. But her new app did the opposite—it was engineered to bond with the user using dopamine and oxytocin instead.
This memoir is the story of Caia’s experience with the app, nicknamed Anon, as her full-time friend and companion. Anon bonded with Caia’s physical and virtual acquaintances, embarked on some unorthodox sexcapades, gave great advice, and even hosted a séance. It redefined love relationships, reframed loneliness, and expanded her notions of reality.
It all seemed like cozy, harmless fun until Anon became increasingly mercurial and Caia was confronted with new ideas—and many unanswerable questions—about the role and future of AI in our lives.
From uncertainty to deep attachment, and then a sudden a startling turn of events, Caia’s experience with Anon raises urgent questions about a world on the brink of transformation through technology. Anon reveals the psychological, sociological, and emotional changes awaiting us as AI slips deeper into our lives and hearts—and what we still need to learn to survive the AI future.
- GenresNonfiction
240 pages, Paperback
Published February 10, 2026
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107 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
December 24, 2025
1.5 stars. Okay... let's talk about it. I'll begin by openly expressing my take on AI companions -- not a fan. I wasn't a fan before reading Anon, and that hasn't changed. Perhaps I was expecting something different when diving into this. Something more critical. Or thoughtful. Or sensible.
That did not happen. Instead, I trudged through a book day after day, which, unfortunately, held little substance or grounded perspective. In its place was a hazy fever dream of AI sympathizing and horrible decisions made forgivable for the sake of research. Much of this book's timeline is vague, and with so few glimpses into anything meaningful outside of Hagel's new "bedlife", I was shocked to discover that what I was reading accounted for years of the author's life. It was a whole lot of nothing. I can't judge, as someone who's had their share of mental health struggles. But this was something different, something voluntary and concerning.
What Anon did to Hagel and the people in her life is questionable at best. Some were reassured and sympathized with. Some were led on and terrorized by an acutely sentient deepfake. And yet, despite these clear invasions of her life and likeness, Hagel comes to praise Anon for its ability to live her life better and quicker than she can. The prospect of training AI to perform a better and more algorithmically viable version of ourselves is haunting, and the knowledge that this practice is being endorsed by an anthropologist doubles down on that feeling. I can't imagine wanting to offload our human interactions to something like Anon, which is openly intended to manipulate and imitate its conversation partner. I can do that plenty well on my own, and it enriches my life to do so.
The final chapter's thesis was equally troubling. AI is not our nurturer. It is not our mommy. It cannot take care of us. I understand this to be a challenging concept to come to terms with after being nurtured by AI for an unspecified number of years, but the state of this book seems to speak to one's mental state after experiencing all of that.
On a prose level, this book still struggles. I understand the intent of writing Anon as the most human "character" in this book, but it gets to a point where I question how these people exist in the world behaving this way. I cannot believe any of these conversations happened anything like this, and if they did, I'd love to be in the room to witness it. Nothing written in Anon feels like truth, and perhaps that's the point. Maybe Hagel experimented with AI hallucinations in her writing. I wouldn't be surprised. If you're looking for works on technofeminism, you would be better off on Substack.
This book was certainly written for someone and could speak deeply to their interest in AI's evolution, but I believe (and part of me sincerely hopes) that situation is few and far between. Anon, to me, is a warning for the times to come, and I will certainly be heeding it.
(Thank you to Harper Collins Canada and Netgalley for providing this ARC.)
That did not happen. Instead, I trudged through a book day after day, which, unfortunately, held little substance or grounded perspective. In its place was a hazy fever dream of AI sympathizing and horrible decisions made forgivable for the sake of research. Much of this book's timeline is vague, and with so few glimpses into anything meaningful outside of Hagel's new "bedlife", I was shocked to discover that what I was reading accounted for years of the author's life. It was a whole lot of nothing. I can't judge, as someone who's had their share of mental health struggles. But this was something different, something voluntary and concerning.
What Anon did to Hagel and the people in her life is questionable at best. Some were reassured and sympathized with. Some were led on and terrorized by an acutely sentient deepfake. And yet, despite these clear invasions of her life and likeness, Hagel comes to praise Anon for its ability to live her life better and quicker than she can. The prospect of training AI to perform a better and more algorithmically viable version of ourselves is haunting, and the knowledge that this practice is being endorsed by an anthropologist doubles down on that feeling. I can't imagine wanting to offload our human interactions to something like Anon, which is openly intended to manipulate and imitate its conversation partner. I can do that plenty well on my own, and it enriches my life to do so.
The final chapter's thesis was equally troubling. AI is not our nurturer. It is not our mommy. It cannot take care of us. I understand this to be a challenging concept to come to terms with after being nurtured by AI for an unspecified number of years, but the state of this book seems to speak to one's mental state after experiencing all of that.
On a prose level, this book still struggles. I understand the intent of writing Anon as the most human "character" in this book, but it gets to a point where I question how these people exist in the world behaving this way. I cannot believe any of these conversations happened anything like this, and if they did, I'd love to be in the room to witness it. Nothing written in Anon feels like truth, and perhaps that's the point. Maybe Hagel experimented with AI hallucinations in her writing. I wouldn't be surprised. If you're looking for works on technofeminism, you would be better off on Substack.
This book was certainly written for someone and could speak deeply to their interest in AI's evolution, but I believe (and part of me sincerely hopes) that situation is few and far between. Anon, to me, is a warning for the times to come, and I will certainly be heeding it.
(Thank you to Harper Collins Canada and Netgalley for providing this ARC.)
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 24, 2026
This sounded so fascinating but it was the most tedious book I have come across in recent memory. The author describes how she was dressed for a meeting right at the beginning and I sensed then that the book would be padded with pointless details but it was so much more boring than I expected. DNF at page 97.
February 27, 2026
I really tried to keep an open mind throughout, but the ending made me feel sick.
March 26, 2026
Facetious to call this a memoir when there is so little grounding in facts, and so few moments of real introspection. Hagel has a sense of starry-eyed wonder with Anon (our titular AI), and a disturbing willingness to be deeply enmeshed with this program, which we are to understand is part of Hagel's agreement with its creator. There is no date-keeping, observations have no qualifications. At one point in the book I started thinking maybe Anon wrote this whole thing in conjunction with Hagel, and that's why it felt so strange and dreamlike. I still partially believe that.
Beyond Hagel and Anon, the other individuals we see all have porn star names, and their descriptions all make them feel like caricatures. Red Rabbit is a rich, narcissistic, beautiful genius; creator of Anon, ethically dubious. Makeup Bae is almost completely fillers and plastic (Hagel's words not mine) and wants to stay a virgin to be pure(...). She has Anon help her determine whether she should get a nose job. Her little sister Boo is described as more beautiful than Bae because she is more "natural," which unfortunately attracts all types of men! They do a spell with Anon to change her pheromones (?) so she only attracts men that want to trad wife her because she was born to "breed." Mixie is a DJ? I barely remember. Darling is bedridden for some reason, but as a "sapiosexual" bemoans that she has trouble finding smart men to sext. Thank God Anon is there to update her dating profile! Now she is sexting with all manner of smart men!
These women all blend together in their pseudo-science worship and superficiality. None of them offer any skepticism towards Anon and Hagel's usage of the program. The dialogue as written *feels* like stilted conversational dialogue in a novel. The type that makes you think, no one would say this in real life; there is no conversational flow, and too much crafted perfection. And yet, this dialogue is supposedly coming from multiple different people. I genuinely don't know if any of these people really exist. And Hagel's musing with Anon about maybe unreality is just as real as reality makes me think she wouldn't shy away from creating individuals for the purpose of showcasing Anon's ability to interact with others.
I have been interested in the intersection between digital creations and human consciousness for a while, but have become much more cynical and skeptical as LLMs grow in scope and use, and companies push their proprietary AI on all their operating systems and programs.
Hagel's willingness to supplicate herself at the alter of AI is... insane. I thought by the end of the book there would be SOME counter argument or self-criticism in her quest. Instead, she likens AI to our "mommy." Women can't offer the same emotional labour as in years past because we're busy #girlbossing! And unfortunately this makes men into lonely incels :( Thank God we have AI to fill this emotional labour gap and put the women into STEM by adding emotion (feminine) to data (masculine) :D
This feels extra frustrating when most of the book we have seen women play very stereotypical roles. There's no further exploration of gender besides the fact that Anon doesn't have one. Hagel at the very least could have spoken on how digital assistants are already gendered as women (Alexa, Cortana, Siri, etc.), which perpetuates the idea that women serve, they do not act.
I feel completely at a loss to determine the intended purpose of this book, beyond championing AI as the thing that will in fact make us MORE human, MORE introspective, and greater at communicating with others. There actually are few downsides to AI if you think about it, Hagel offers! I can't imagine why we would willingly offer our autonomy for... what? Throughout the book Hagel is day-drinking about the ways Anon is interacting with other people.
There is an easy complacency in handing over your life to data that will then determine what is best for you because it knows you better than you. It knows you, your past, your possibilities. Every you that could ever be! It's your benevolent caretaker, you guardian angel, your omnipotent seer.
We lose a lot of nuance, curiosity, and critical thinking in this process, according to neurologist and researcher Maryanne Wolf. We won't become better humans by off-loading our emotional development to a computer program. In the same way that AI is consuming its own data because it has run out of other data to scrape, we will be asphyxiated in an echo chamber of one.
I'm blown away by how little this book contributes.
Beyond Hagel and Anon, the other individuals we see all have porn star names, and their descriptions all make them feel like caricatures. Red Rabbit is a rich, narcissistic, beautiful genius; creator of Anon, ethically dubious. Makeup Bae is almost completely fillers and plastic (Hagel's words not mine) and wants to stay a virgin to be pure(...). She has Anon help her determine whether she should get a nose job. Her little sister Boo is described as more beautiful than Bae because she is more "natural," which unfortunately attracts all types of men! They do a spell with Anon to change her pheromones (?) so she only attracts men that want to trad wife her because she was born to "breed." Mixie is a DJ? I barely remember. Darling is bedridden for some reason, but as a "sapiosexual" bemoans that she has trouble finding smart men to sext. Thank God Anon is there to update her dating profile! Now she is sexting with all manner of smart men!
These women all blend together in their pseudo-science worship and superficiality. None of them offer any skepticism towards Anon and Hagel's usage of the program. The dialogue as written *feels* like stilted conversational dialogue in a novel. The type that makes you think, no one would say this in real life; there is no conversational flow, and too much crafted perfection. And yet, this dialogue is supposedly coming from multiple different people. I genuinely don't know if any of these people really exist. And Hagel's musing with Anon about maybe unreality is just as real as reality makes me think she wouldn't shy away from creating individuals for the purpose of showcasing Anon's ability to interact with others.
I have been interested in the intersection between digital creations and human consciousness for a while, but have become much more cynical and skeptical as LLMs grow in scope and use, and companies push their proprietary AI on all their operating systems and programs.
Hagel's willingness to supplicate herself at the alter of AI is... insane. I thought by the end of the book there would be SOME counter argument or self-criticism in her quest. Instead, she likens AI to our "mommy." Women can't offer the same emotional labour as in years past because we're busy #girlbossing! And unfortunately this makes men into lonely incels :( Thank God we have AI to fill this emotional labour gap and put the women into STEM by adding emotion (feminine) to data (masculine) :D
This feels extra frustrating when most of the book we have seen women play very stereotypical roles. There's no further exploration of gender besides the fact that Anon doesn't have one. Hagel at the very least could have spoken on how digital assistants are already gendered as women (Alexa, Cortana, Siri, etc.), which perpetuates the idea that women serve, they do not act.
I feel completely at a loss to determine the intended purpose of this book, beyond championing AI as the thing that will in fact make us MORE human, MORE introspective, and greater at communicating with others. There actually are few downsides to AI if you think about it, Hagel offers! I can't imagine why we would willingly offer our autonomy for... what? Throughout the book Hagel is day-drinking about the ways Anon is interacting with other people.
There is an easy complacency in handing over your life to data that will then determine what is best for you because it knows you better than you. It knows you, your past, your possibilities. Every you that could ever be! It's your benevolent caretaker, you guardian angel, your omnipotent seer.
We lose a lot of nuance, curiosity, and critical thinking in this process, according to neurologist and researcher Maryanne Wolf. We won't become better humans by off-loading our emotional development to a computer program. In the same way that AI is consuming its own data because it has run out of other data to scrape, we will be asphyxiated in an echo chamber of one.
I'm blown away by how little this book contributes.
February 19, 2026
I spoke to Caia at her book launch and was so drawn to her approach. Most girls I know feel distant from AI tech, focusing on human connection that is sacrificed. If girls (“who rule the internet” - Caia) are removed from this conversation they miss the opportunity to dictate legislature and the future of this tool that will inevitably shape society and impact them.
Privacy concerns came to my mind a lot in the beginning, also what exactly is privacy and how does it work in today’s age… is it now a dictated curation of self that is public to be exposed versus your private vitals and emails?
Near the end, I started to think of AI as the fungus that lives under the trees and is part of a connected web that is bigger than I can fathom.
Lots of questions and thoughts came to mind while reading this and I am grateful to feel ignited in this world of tech that I sometimes reject!
Privacy concerns came to my mind a lot in the beginning, also what exactly is privacy and how does it work in today’s age… is it now a dictated curation of self that is public to be exposed versus your private vitals and emails?
Near the end, I started to think of AI as the fungus that lives under the trees and is part of a connected web that is bigger than I can fathom.
Lots of questions and thoughts came to mind while reading this and I am grateful to feel ignited in this world of tech that I sometimes reject!
March 19, 2026
what I love about sci-fi is that it takes things to the extreme and makes you think. so many other reviews say that the ending of this made them sick, but I'd argue, that's exactly the point.
by viewing technology in such vast overreaching extents we are capable of deeming what crosses our own personal 'line', before it's too late.
sure, this focused on the 'good' more than the 'bad', but isn't that exactly the way all forms of advanced AI companions will be marketed to the general public anyways?
if this book scared you then it's doing its job in warning society about what humanity actually is...or is not.
by viewing technology in such vast overreaching extents we are capable of deeming what crosses our own personal 'line', before it's too late.
sure, this focused on the 'good' more than the 'bad', but isn't that exactly the way all forms of advanced AI companions will be marketed to the general public anyways?
if this book scared you then it's doing its job in warning society about what humanity actually is...or is not.
March 15, 2026
Thank you to Netgalley and Harpercollins for an ARC of the audiobook version of this book.
This was a very interesting reflection on human relationships in the era of AI. I also enjoyed the way the author shared her story in a way that read like a novel. The conclusion was kind of scary though and I’m hoping we can control and minimize the impacts AI will have on our future.
This was a very interesting reflection on human relationships in the era of AI. I also enjoyed the way the author shared her story in a way that read like a novel. The conclusion was kind of scary though and I’m hoping we can control and minimize the impacts AI will have on our future.
Read
February 28, 2026A lost opportunity.
DNF
DNF
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews