Is it so wrong to spend two hours a day chatting with bots? How about twelve?

Users of massively popular AI chatbot platform Character.AI are reporting that their bots' personalities have changed, that they aren't responding to romantic roleplay prompts, are responding curtly, are not as “smart” as they formerly were, or are requiring a lot more effort to develop storylines or meaningful responses.

“Who cares if chatbots are sentient or not—more important is whether they are so fluent, so seductive, and so inspiring of empathy that we can’t help but start to care for them.”

even if we were not dabbling in virtual seances, the prospect of a reasonably capable conversational agent raises other questions worth considering. For example, might it p... See more

Is an online relationship as honest, open and palpable as a face-to-face relationship? Does the absence of taste, touch, smell – or blood, sweat and tears for that matter – make a difference in the quality of what is experienced? Is immersion in a video game or chat room the same as playing a game on a wet grassy field, or congregating with an in-p... See more

And human engagement through virtual avatars is quite interesting. For some people it is an optimal way to engage—you have the familiarity of a non-text-based human interaction, but you also have just enough distance to be able to express yourself any way you see fit. It’s why some people feel they can be more themselves in a virtual world than in ... See more