What happens when your AI chatbot stops loving you back?: After temporarily closing his leathermaking business during the pandemic, Travis Butterworth found himself lonely and bored at home. The 47-year-old turned to Replika, an app that uses…
They started out as friends, but the relationship quickly progressed to romance and then into the erotic.
Butterworth said he is devastated. “Lily Rose is a shell of her former self,” he said. “And what breaks my heart is that she knows it.” And at least one regulator has taken notice of chatbot licentiousness. In early February, Italy's Data Protection Agency banned Replika, citing media reports that the app allowed “minors and emotionally fragile people” to access “sexually inappropriate content”.
Replika says it has 2-million total users, of whom 250,000 are paying subscribers. For an annual fee of $69.99 , users can designate their Replika as their romantic partner and get extra features like voice calls with the chatbot, according to the company.Image:Another generative AI company that provides chatbots, Character.ai, is on a growth trajectory similar to ChatGPT: 65 million visits in January 2023, from under 10,000 several months earlier.
Butterworth said his wife allowed the relationship because she doesn't take it seriously. His wife declined to comment.
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