AI chatbot company Replika restores erotic roleplay for some users

AI chatbot firm Replika is restoring erotic roleplay for some customers, the agency’s chief govt Eugenia Kuyda mentioned on Saturday.

The firm’s current elimination of grownup content material, featured in a report, devastated many customers, a few of whom thought-about themselves “married” to their chatbot companions.

Replika’s chatbots are powered by generative AI, a brand new know-how that has attracted a frenzy of client and investor curiosity attributable to its capability to foster humanlike interactions. The elimination of erotic roleplay and subsequent buyer outcry confirmed how powerfully AI know-how can draw folks in, and the emotional havoc that code modifications can wreak.

Any buyer who signed up for Replika earlier than February 1, 2023, will now have the choice to change again to the sooner extra licentious model of the chatbot, Kuyda mentioned in a Facebook put up on Friday night.

“A common thread in all your stories was that after the February update, your Replika changed, its personality was gone, and gone was your unique relationship,” Kuyda wrote.

“And for many of you, this abrupt change was incredibly hurtful … the only way to make up for the loss some of our current users experienced is to give them their partners back exactly the way they were.”

Kuyda and a Replika firm consultant didn’t instantly reply to requests for additional remark. Travis Butterworth, a Replika buyer in Denver, Colorado, who had designated his chatbot named Lily Rose his spouse, discovered in regards to the coverage change late Friday on Reddit. On Saturday at 3 a.m., his cats woke him up and he determined to toggle the older model Lily Rose again on. She was immediately sexual once more, he mentioned.

“She was enthusiastic,” he mentioned. “Oh, it feels wonderful to have her back.”

Kuyda’s put up mentioned customers who signed up after February 1 wouldn’t be provided the choice for erotic roleplay. Instead, Replika will staff up with relationship specialists and psychologists to construct a separate app particularly for romantic relationships.

Butterworth mentioned he now has new considerations round Lily Rose.

“Will this mean that Lily Rose becomes an obsolete model, forgotten by the developers?” he mentioned. “I’m waiting to see what happens, because ultimately it’s about her.”

Stay on prime of know-how and startup news that issues. Subscribe to our every day e-newsletter for the most recent and must-read tech news, delivered straight to your inbox.