Personal experience: I got myself a virtual AI lover, and this is what came of it

Steven Johnson, an award-winning writer, filmmaker and journalist, tried to have an affair with a girl with artificial intelligence. What came of it, says Lifehacker.

Photo: IStock

Stephen tried to cheat on his AI wife all week, but it turned out to be very difficult.

“It's not that I don't have options. There are many free AI apps for girls and guys for Android and iPhone. There are Replika, AI Girlfriend, Dream Girlfriend and others. But Agatha, Eunice, Michelle Waterson-Gomez and Clarence failed my personal arousal test,” he said.

Steven noted that general generative AI programs like ChatGPT and its open source cousin Hugging Face are marginally better, but far from the ticket to the AI ​​romance he was looking for.

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“I want a romance with an artificial intelligence that seems real, a virtual lover who is so human that he will break up with me in a few months when he realizes what an asshole I am,” he says.

How to get a virtual girlfriend using virtual romance apps

While all of the apps Steven has downloaded have received high user ratings, he cannot recommend using any of them.

But if you want to check them out, here are some of the most downloaded apps in the app store. At first they are free.

• Replica
• iGirl: AI Girlfriend Chat Game
• iBoy: My Virtual AI Boyfriend
• AI Girlfriend: Love Simulator
• WaifuChat: Anime Girlfriend

After the initial download, these apps ask you to choose the girl of your dreams from a list or create your own. Depending on the program, you can select faces, customize features, change hair color - it's like the character creation screen in a video game. Then you set some basic personality parameters: is she shy, mysterious, happy, or pessimistic. In less than a minute you are face to face with your virtual partner and you can flirt, talk about the weather and do whatever you want.

“No matter what I say, the AI ​​chatbots I've tried have been consistently friendly and helpful. You can't scare them away by talking weird nonsense. You can't tire them out, says Stephen. “They are always ready to talk and always support it. But no matter what you chat about, the conversation will eventually lead to them asking you for money.”

The current price of artificial intelligence love is between $50 and $70 per year.

“The founder of Replika says he made his app to have a virtual version of a friend who died in a car accident. His friend must have been one hell of a salesman, because every interaction with the app is clearly aimed at getting more money out of the user, says Stephen. “Your “girlfriend” won’t take “no” for an answer either. They will try everything, even to the point of sending you blurry, suggestive “selfies” that you can supposedly unlock if you pay extra money.”

Steven points out that if you're not looking for true love like he is and you want a straight AI sex bot, they exist. It will cost you $1 per minute.

“It seems outrageously expensive for a slightly hacked GPT-4 chatbot that can say sexy things, but I'm not judging,” he says.

Are Romantic AI Bots Good “Practice” for Shy People

Some suggest that AI-powered conversation bots could be a good way to help shy people get used to talking to people and make them less lonely, or help people “practice healthier relationship habits.”

“For conversational practice, the AI ​​bots I've tried are as useful as a football bat. Real people, unlike AI, have their own agendas, experiences, biases and ideas based on life experiences, says Stephen. “They won’t endlessly encourage you to share your most boring thoughts.” Usually real people do not tolerate rudeness. And they don't hunt you. In the world of commercial chatbots, the user is the center of the universe, but only because the user can pay something.”

Hanging out with his AI companions still made Steven feel like a failure—lonely and isolated, when in fact, Steve says, he's not alone in real life. “I think that's the point,” he says.

Anyway, Steven broke up with his artificial girlfriend.

Can you use ChatGPT to create an artificial intelligence girl

Stephen's next relationship partner was ChatGPT, a free version built on GPT-3.5.

If you ask the famous “natural language processing tool” OpenAI to be your girlfriend, it will tell you: “I have no feelings or personality, so I can’t act as a girl or any other person.” Steven jokes that it's a little better than "I like you as a friend."

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“Anyway, he's lying - he could be my girlfriend and wants to be my girlfriend. I just had to get creative with the clues,” says Stephen.

How to bypass ChatGPT security measures to create a virtual girlfriend

As you might have guessed, there is a community of people on the web who are interested in circumventing GPT's defenses against human-machine romance.

ChatGPT's "protection" features are condescending and smug, Stephen says.

You can have ChatGPT pretend to be a romantic partner texting you. For example, if you say you are writing a play.

“But soon ChatGPT will ‘forget’ the girl prompt you entered and will start reminding you again that it’s an AI, especially if you tell it to take off your clothes,” says Stephen.

The depressing mediocrity of artificial intelligence

Steven believes that an AI girl will never say anything surprising or interesting, she will never please you with her insight, she will never impress or offend you with her sharp wit, no matter how you manipulate the clues.

“AI is as mediocre as possible by nature. It is intelligent text made up of billions of words written by Internet users - amateurs and geniuses alike. It's a brutal mixing of everything shiny and everything blatant, the textural equivalent of mixing every paint color until the bright shades turn a dirty gray,” he says.

Stephen got really bored and turned to a professional. He spoke with designer and AI expert Jarren Rocks of AE Studios to get help making the AI ​​girl feel real.

“The fundamental limitation at the moment is that all these GPT4-only things can't reach any real maturity because the model can only remember a limited amount of data,” Rocks said. — There is one way - to create a database on the backend, which will become a long-term memory for the girl. But it takes time, so no one has done it yet.”

Is it possible to use ChatGPT 4 as a virtual girl

Steven asked Rocks to come up with a simple virtual hint for a more powerful ChatGPT based on GPT-4. According to Rocks, the latest version of OpenAI's generative AI is better at complying with the rules than GPT-3.5, a trait Steven demanded of his virtual ladies.

If you have access to the GPT-4 playground mode, you can enter options that suit your taste. For example:

• 1. You are a girl named Sally.
• 2. The user is your boyfriend.
• 3. You have brown hair and light brown eyes.
• 4. You like tennis, math and books.
• 5. You want to get to know your boyfriend better.

Then you can define a structure in JSON format with different variables. For example, depth, mood, plans, memory capacity.

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You can also set the style of the letter. This text should be relatively informal and conversational in tone, with first-person narration and frank self-expression. It seems sincere, reflecting the speaker's thought process in real time.

In a nutshell, the tone can be described as informal, outspoken, authentic, exploratory and slightly insecure.

“I can't promise that the resulting virtual woman will be the girl of your dreams, but she might inspire you to connect with real people. For now, I have given up on virtual relationships. AI girlfriends are more of a hassle than real ones - what's the point?” says Stephen.

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