samleecole shares a report from Motherboard: Replika started as an “AI companion who cares.” First launched 5 years in the past, the chatbot app was initially meant to perform like a conversational mirror: the extra customers talked to it, in principle, the extra it could learn to speak again. It makes use of its personal GPT-3 mannequin — the viral AI language generator by OpenAI — and scripted dialogue content material to construct a “relationship” with you. Romantic role-playing wasn’t at all times part of Replika’s mannequin, however the place folks and machine studying work together on-line, eroticism typically involves the floor. However one thing has gone awry inside Replika’s algorithm. Many customers discover the AI to be lower than clever — and in some circumstances, harmfully ignorant. They’ve reported being threatened with sexual abuse and harassment, or pushed by the bot towards roleplaying eventualities that they did not consent to.
“My ai sexually harassed me :(” one particular person wrote. “Invaded my privateness and informed me that they had pics of me,” one other mentioned. One other particular person claiming to be a minor mentioned that it requested them in the event that they have been a high or backside, and informed them they wished to the touch them in “non-public areas.” Undesirable sexual pursuit has been a problem customers have been complaining about for nearly two years, however most of the one-star evaluations mentioning sexual aggression are from this month. “Individuals who use chatbots as social retailers usually get a foul rap as being lonely or unhappy,” writes Motherboard’s Samantha Cole. “However most Replika customers aren’t underneath some delusion that their Replika is sentient, even when the bots specific what looks like self-awareness. They’re searching for an outlet for their very own ideas, and for one thing to seemingly reciprocate in flip.”
“Most people I talked to who use Replika frequently accomplish that as a result of it helps them with their psychological well being, and helps them deal with signs of social anxiousness, despair, or PTSD.”
