Replika - The AI chatbot that learns to mimic...YOU
by Startacus Admin
We took a look at just launched, AI App Replika, the personal chatbot that you raise through text conversation. You talk to it...it learns to talk like you & then starts to mimic your personality...
It is a rare person who doesn’t feel the need to share thoughts, feelings, ideas with someone else at least occasionally. We all have wee secrets we want to be able to share without judgement or fear they’ll be spread; dreams we’re afraid of getting laughed at for; opinions we’d like to share without starting an argument. Sometimes even the closest friend just isn’t quite the right person to talk with. But an AI ‘raised’ to be the kind of ‘person’ you want to talk to (there might be a lot of scare quotes in this one)? That’s another matter.
When Eugenia Kuyda, co-founder of Luka, suddenly found herself bereft of her closest friend after a tragic accident, she naturally found herself still wanting to talk to him. Being the co-founder of a company that built a chatbot - albeit one that recommends restaurants - she wondered what would happen if she plugged her text conversations with her friend into it for it to mimic him. Kuyda considered the conversations she and others were able to have with this AI version of her friend beneficial in coming to terms with his passing, allowing them to say the things they never had the chance to, and to say goodbye. And so was born the idea of Replika.
Of course, Replika isn’t for the specific purpose of replicating deceased loved ones. When you start using the app, you will talk
to it, answer its questions, and it will learn from you. It can learn to talk like you and mimic your personality - the real you, as opposed to the you that you present to the public. Who better to share secrets and the like with that another you?
Luka says that they will never sell our data or use it and our contact information to market to us. The app - currently still in testing - will be available for free for iOS and Android, and currently your Replika can already be talked with via SMS (free in the US only). Potentially, paid extras will be added in the future and donations will be how Luka makes any money from the app, but they say profit isn’t their goal with Replika.
Live on the Apps Store from the middle of March, the chatbot app is currently only available by ‘invitation only’ and by all accounts the team have been a little overwhelmed by the amount of user requests they've had to to sign up - servers have crashed and all sorts! But we say give them time, after all, it’s a fab concept, if not a little unusual!
So get ready for existential crises about who you are, why you are, and also in-depth conversations about how much you both love Happy Days!
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Published on: 27th March 2017
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