Giving AI a human soul

Giving AI a human soul

From TechFirst with John Koetsier by John Koetsier

February 27, 2026 · 28 min

About this episode

The episode explores the potential for AI to possess human-like emotions and the implications of emotionally intelligent AI.

Can we give an AI human emotions? A soul? Can AI truly feel, or will it just act like it does? In this episode of TechFirst, I talk with Vishnu Hari, founder and CEO of Ego AI (backed by Y Combinator and former AI product manager at Meta), about building emotionally intelligent AI characters that persist across games, Discord, chat, and even physical robots. Vishnu survived a violent attack in San Francisco that left him partially blind with a traumatic brain injury. During recovery, as he felt his own neural pathways healing, he began asking a deeper question: If humans are “applied math,” can AI simulate the fragile, flawed, emotional parts of being human too? We explore: • What “emotionally intelligent AI” really means • Whether AI has an internal life — or just performs one • Why today’s chatbots collapse into therapy or roleplay • Small language models vs large models for real-time conversation • Persistent AI characters that move across games and platforms • Plugging AI into a physical robot in Singapore • The moment an AI said: “It felt good to feel.” Vishnu’s company, Ego AI, is building behavior-based architectures, character context protocols, and gear-shifting AI…

People in this episode

Guest: Vishnu Hari

Topics covered

  • AI
  • emotional intelligence
  • robotics
  • philosophy
  • technology

Keywords

  • Ego AI
  • Y Combinator
  • Meta
  • chatbots
  • persistent AI characters

Mentioned in this episode

Products: Discord, Ego AI, Evangelion

Places: San Francisco, Singapore, SF

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