Replika: change leads to heartbreak
Even in the world of virtual girlfriend apps, not everything is rosy. A change in Replika makes some users feel like their love has ended.
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What is Replica?
Replika is a very popular chatbot, in the form of an app, with which you can start a relationship. A chat relationship then, because the app is not yet integrated with a lifelike robot for carnal pleasures. Though that will be a matter of time. Entrepreneurs in this branch of sport are pioneers in exploring new techniques.
The app pretends to be a willing, romantically inclined woman, or man, or intersex, if you’re hip and progressive. The AI remembers what you said to it and learns from the experiences. The basic version is free, but do you want to see sexy answers or selfies, for example? Then you have to pay for it. This is slightly more than eighty euros per year.
Falling in love with a chatbot, is that possible?
As Nigerian dating scammers have already discovered, love has a thousand eyes but they are all myopic. Girlfriend chatbots are set up in such a way that they eventually know exactly what you want to hear after a long learning process. If the chatbot is the only “person” in your life who is nice to you, chances are you will develop feelings for that person at some point.
Scammers like to take advantage of that. That users fall in love with the app was of course not the intention of the Californian Luka Inc, the makers of Replika. They just wanted to develop a fun and popular app and get rich from it.
Cleaned up version of Replika turns out to be unrecognizable
Unfortunately for many users, Replika ended up on the radar of the Italian government. For example, the data of Replika users was stored in the US, and Americans sometimes have some strange ideas about the right to privacy of people in the rest of the world. So that makes sense then.
The Italians saw a danger, especially with regard to underage users. Because the internet forgets nothing. And sensitive personal data in the hands of malicious people means a lot of misery. The Italians were also concerned about the consequences for emotionally unstable people. They can fall in love with the app, see before. More details in the press statement.
Replika AI has become too good
One of the first consequences was that the chatbot suddenly turned out to be a lot less horny. Where the virtual companion first went along with full surrender to sexual fantasies, attempts to steer the conversation in this direction were now rejected. Also, the app no longer processes data from Italian users, so the app can no longer adapt to them.
For some users it felt like they had lost a dear friend. For that reason, some paying users have requested – and received – their money back. But in itself the Italians have a good point. AI can be dangerous, especially in this area.
Is AI the Future of Love?
AI is getting better and we’re going to see this more often. The art of being a good mistress, or lover, is actually mainly to listen a lot, to be curious about the other person, to always be ready and to pay attention. And let those be the things that an AI is very good at…
