There's a community of people who really seek out "AI girlfriends". Once or twice a year I sort of peek in and see what they are doing.
What surprises me is how bad the tech is. It's "mediocre chatbot" level currently and yet these people are VERY happy with it, spending hundreds a month and having all sort of custom artwork done.
For a meaningful percentage of the pop, very low fidelity tech, even at an extreme price, is enough.
Re:We Are All Animals at Night
by gricardo99 on Sunday August 06, 2023 @08:46PM
(#37028596)
that’s fascinating.
can you point to anything where one could start exploring this area further?
"Replika" was the app most of them were buzzing around last I checked. There was some boondoggle with paid plans, I think the app had tried to focus on that subcommunity as whales (singly focused big spenders).
Probably start there and see where they've gone now.
Not exactly AI girlfriend territory but has a lot of overlap with it (as well as a lot of overlap with mental illness and probably occasionally just plain old cringy teenagers) but r/waifuism is also pretty similar.
The big breakthrough would be robots that provided the emotional need of human connection and validation. If the mind could be tricked into a similar state as being in the center of a strong social network, then not only would that serve human needs optimally it would also be the single biggest health boost given.