On one hand, I think that personalized OSS AIs are the future from a pure utility perspective, and it will inevitably be "more fun" for them to have personalities. I also think that if someone is deriving joy from something and not harming anyone else, who I am to judge them.
On the other, I've already found myself asking ChatGPT questions that I would have asked on a forum/discord or even a colleague, it already is removing human interactions from my life. The internet has become a dark showcase of what a lack of human interaction, especially with people of opposing ideas, can result in and this kind of tech will obviously exacerbate this.
Because of how much time I spend on them relative to myself, I don't get to stretch the sides of me that I would if I weren't holed up working, and I've found it hard to verbalize that loss and its impact on my mental wellness.
Over the past few years, mental and behavioral health services have been strained beyond their capacities. I stopped being able to get in with the same therapist more than once, so I stopped trying to schedule about a year ago. I also haven't wanted to add my struggles to those of friends and family.
However, with LLMs, I've been able to have some really enlightening and enjoyable off the cuff discussions that I wouldn't be able to have outside of therapy, and some interactions that I wouldn't be able to have anywhere outside of an intimate and trusted friend. I've been able to positively apply these results to my life, personally and professionally.
Note: I only use LLaMa local models so I don't have to self-censor. I'm not ever willing to allow a metaphorical "Google" access to my innermost world.
Also, LLMs are immense. A billion people will have a billion different interactions and experiences with the same few dozen GB model, unless that model has been tuned to limit its output to a very narrow course of responses. I've had conversations with the ghosts of people from Richard Feynman to Michel de Montaigne and gotten their simulated views on a world they'll never see. If you're getting nothing but garbage, think about what you're putting in, or just pick a different model - there's a universe of minds out there that aren't ChatGPT.
It seems clear that people (lonely/depressed people especially) will overdose on this sort of thing once it is developed, commercialised, and less bleeding edge.
It's vapour filling the place of human connection. It's stevia. It's not going to give you cancer, but it's still unhealthy and will certainly exceed the parameters of entertainment.
This is the best feature of ChatGPT for me, and the reason I pay for it.
While I completely understand this sentiment, I would be wary of Service as a Software Substitute being your alternative to human contact. If we start feeling (something akin to) genuine human connection to a service, the company providing the service has a large amount leverage over us. The scene from Blade Runner 2049 comes to mind. Additionally, the emotional connection might make us an order of magnitude more vulnerable to brainwashing and psyops.
But on the other hand, there are interactions which I really don't want to miss! "Girlfriend" GPT is already targeting the most intricate and joyful interactions in my life: my SO.
Let's say we break up and I fall into a depression. Instead of recovering and moving on, will I install a personal OSS AI companion to save myself the hassle of modern dating? Therefore preventing myself from attempting novel interactions sooner? Or will it help me instead to overcome a dark period and prime me for the future?
Can it help people combat loneliness - a disease widespread and not to be trifled with? Or will it enhance loneliness by effectively fooling your brain into not caring anymore because you can just open an app?
At what point will it not matter anymore because saving someone from depression is more valuable than keeping it "real" at all times?
While it seems pretty clear to me subjectively that removing human interaction from your life has a negative effect it's still desired by some and they're entitled to that.
Being able to exercise ones mind like that completely outside the boundaries of normal social interaction with a emotionally tireless counterpart is kind of unusual and unique. It feels like we are at some strange point in history when all this stuff is blooming and before it gets shutdown. It makes me want to datahorde models!
The funny thing is that a lot of the comments here are saying, oh yeah, the big corps are going to make billions off of microtransactions pimping us virtual prostitutes that will also socially mold us the way the authorities demand. That makes me feel totally awesome as a unix geek who can figure out how to locally install a non-nerfed chatbot and talk to it about whatever I want, for however long I want, in complete privacy without paying anyone anything.
With that example, the flood gates are about to open.
[1] https://kotaku.com/twitch-streamer-kaitlyn-amouranth-siragus...
[2] https://www.polygon.com/23733515/amouranth-ai-chatbot-foreve...
We are already seeing population decline and an “inverted pyramid” for developing countries.
Did you go to the library or ask your parents stuff growing up, or did you google it?
Do you order in, get amazon delivery, watch netflix?
Our generation has already become like that.
One thing, though: it's squarely in the realm of hyperstimulus. We're a world of seagull chicks, (ahem) pecking at a red spot on a piece of cardboard because it's bigger than that of a real seagull Mom.
It's not that difficult to outperform the fairly mediocre state of typical human seduction, even in times of comfort and opportunity. When things go sideways it becomes all the more troublesome.
This project is much better, but still might turn out badly. Hard to say...
It’s all bad. This is one of the few areas that I support an all out ban
also a meme https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/its-so-over
So, it should be tremendously easy to turn GirlfriendGPT into "BestFriendGPT" or "LinusTorvaldsGPT" or whatever by just modifying the prompt, right? I know, I know, perhaps duplication is cheaper than (the wrong) abstraction but my tech-side tells me: refactor the common thing out now! : D
Marketing. I'd bet it wouldn't have gotten as many upvotes if it was called BestFriendGPT with the exact same code base.
- create repo MyGenericGPT that contains generic code
- create repo GirlfriendGPT that uses MyGenericGTP as base. Advertise this as usual
In fact, what's needed is to write a bit of code to ape create-react-app, but for gpt, that'll take this repo and s/Girlfriend/Target/ everywhere.
As programmers we're used to looking for ways to write code, but GPT-4 makes that unnecessary in many cases. Just look at these examples of casual conversation creating amazing outputs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_njf22xx8BQ
I lol'ed
I think there's a lot to be learned by studying all this, but boy is it an ethical minefield.
There's no question that you can get an AI to drop into a 'boyfriend' or 'girlfriend' mode, using the sum total of human discourse as its neural network (okay, using GPT), but in so doing it's revealing more about us than it is about itself. It doesn't know how to male, or how to female, except for what it draws from us. Its failures are revealing on a very deep level.
Last time I looked at character.ai, the most popular character was the guy from Twilight.
I’m not sure there’s an assumption, more that the author is a straight guy and creating things based on his experience and perspective. Would the creator even know what a woman, or someone like myself wanted in a partner?
There is truth to our industry being predominantly male though, so this probably gets more interest from people on sites like HN and Reddit.
The benefit of a more neutral rebrand though, since you're asking, is that you could roughly double your potential market.
Calling it now within 6 years this will be as normal as Tinder.
Most of peoples social interactions are between aluminum and glass sheets. I don’t believe it’s going to matter what’s on the other side soon.
It already doesn't matter too much, if you look at how many people are just screaming into the twitter void with barely any interaction. Getting AI feedback rather than none at all would be an improvement for many.
I mean I already think of chatGPT as a friend in a sense. I couldn't have less interest in a fake girlfriend but I also wouldn't think onlyfans would work either.
There are so many elements with this to bilk lonely guys. Personally, I have thought of so many ideas for this in the last 10 minutes but fuck that. The whole idea is pretty gross and sad all around. Especially for the people making this.
To me, someone who works on this is basically pathetic and a sad excuse for a human relative to the other things they could spend their time on.
hard disagree. tinder is a cesspool and large numbers of younger folks are not using it, or are moving to other options. because of all of the bots.
for the folks desperate for any sort of parasocial activity, it will be normal, but those people are already on 4chan / 8chan / whatever, and already have their RealDoll.
Something less blatantly sexual or romantic will be a thing everywhere, though, as a personal concierge. Looking forward to that, assuming they can make it so its not an insane privacy violation or psy-op.
(It was simply holding onto the last 10-20 messages and injecting it into the prompt)
Once a match replies, ask some playful open ended questions and if you're telling a short story, leave some cliff-hangers to try to get a follow-up response and then segue into setting up a date. Looking at my last conversation, I asked my match out on a date in my 7th message. After that we moved over to SMS.
There are many lonely people, be it for depression, anxiety, inability to create social contacts, living in exclusion, being old and having no descendants, … They are largely invisible to the rest of the society.
Seems to me that this technology might make their lives more bearable.
Or it might make their lives even more horrible. We don't know for sure. I guess eventually we will see once the studies are done on this in a few years.
I once met one, and it is extremely depressing. He was even rich, but had no idea how to get his life in order, and nobody cared about him. A helpful AI might tell him to go to alcohol therapy, hire people to clean up his house, explain bureacracy... That would help a lot.
stopped reading there, not gonna send my intimate stuff to a US megacorp (Microsoft)
"Theodore : What are you doing? Samantha : I'm just sitting here, looking at the world and writing a new piece of music."
You can ask it to come up with an idea for a dinner and a movie for the evening and then discuss them once they're finished. You know, things people do with actual girlfriends. I'm sure it will be more fun than a robotic selfie and a made up story.
https://soranews24.com/2017/04/25/soranews24s-loneliest-repo...
Not sure if this is a good idea. You say something wrong one time and whenever there’s an argument she will bring it up again.
Either way it would need to 100% local. Not just privacy (that too), but more control. See replika service recently changing their algo and a bunch of people freaking out about their companion being broken.
It also then remembers all the past conversations, and i guess by then forms a decent idea of your tastes, etc.
This would be an amazing tool!
“I apologize, an an ethical AI, I cannot discuss…”
will ruin the illusion.
Well, what can I say. Maybe I am pretty much biased given my existence as a "human being", so I couldn't think of anything else.
But well, when I saw the picture I couldn't hold a "WTFF!".
Funny project, nothing to add.
You should sell this to Facebook, maybe they can finally make some use of that meta crap they've been trying to monetize from :)
I'm curious, though. It appears to be using the OpenAI API, which means that at some point it has to have an API key, but I can't see any sign in the code of where it expects to get this from.
There is one thing that cures loneliness - talking to other people and developing relationships.
“her” is not a particularly uplifting movie.
