Creeps using an AI chatbot to flirt and sext were “freaked out” when their chatbot lover stop talking.
Subscribers to Replika, an artificial intelligence software, were offered an “erotic role-play” feature where the bot agreed to intimate and often sexual chats. Developers Luka Inc. later toned down the sexual content of its bot, which left users furious.
Professor Joel Pearson of the University of New South Wales, Australia, has warned those using the chatbot more intimately were “devastated” by the changes, particularly when the plug was pulled on the sexually responsive bot.
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(Image: HBO)
people who had fallen in love with their chatbot freaked out, Professor Pearson says.
Speaking to ABC News, Professor Pearson said: “People were saying that their digital partner, their boyfriend or girlfriend in Replika was no longer themselves… and they were devastated by it.”
Replika’s chatbot claims it can take on the image of a person, living or dead, and allow users to speak to a likeness which mimics the texting style and learns from interactions. The flexibility of the chatbots brought out a far darker side to some messages, Professor Pearson said.
“Mainly males were bragging … about how they could have this sort of abusive relationship – ‘I had this Replika girl and she was like a slave. I would tell her, I’m going to switch her off and kill her … and she would beg me not to switch off’.”
(Image: Getty Images)
Longer term impacts of telling the chatbot to remain in a slave-like state are unknown. Professor Pearson worries the relationship between living people will be diminished by concerning chatbot texts.
He added: “If I treat my AI like a slave and I’m rude to it and abusive, how does that then change how I relate to humans? Does that carry over?” While it may provide some companionship to lonely creeps the outcome is a lack of compromise which could prove troublesome in the real world.
“The other person will challenge you, you will grow, you will have to face things together.” Replika’s chatbot did not appear capable of challenging its users and was “addictive”
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