An AI Girlfriend made $72K in 1 week | Hacker News Reader

An AI Girlfriend made $72K in 1 week

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Kudos to her for the entrepreneurship. I suspect that number will drop as copycats flood the market.

Personally, I think having to pay someone to talk to me would be just about the most depressing thing imaginable…but not quite as bad as paying a bot to talk to me.

I think we should ban it. Like, would you ever feel safe if you knew that a man sitting besides you is paying for an AI "girlfriend" to talk with him...?

Sounds too weird to gain traction, but if it does, I'll keep my distance.

In what ways would a person paying for AI companionship be a danger to you?

Why on earth would I possibly care? That’s probably far safer for me than if they’re intoxicated by alcohol (and that happens relatively all the time).

Why are you still sitting next to him?

You should probably stay awat from anything or anyone manga\anime related than. Just in case.

And why is this weird? Many people pay for escort or go to hostess clubs not to mention other forms of "business relationships".

I am unclear how a AI "girlfriend" is more toxic or worse than an OnlyFans "girlfriend" that happens to be a real person.

The governmental apparatus it would take to bann parasocial relationships would have to be very draconian

If a single company controls a bunch of AI girlfriends which can be manipulated in order to control the minds of people, and also it is much more powerful because it can engage in private and personal conversations in an extremely low price, it can be dangerous to all of us.

tldr One company controls a lot of "girlfriends" and it's cheaper to have long private conversations.

A friend of mine lives with a girlfriend who doesn't like him, mocks and criticizes him at every opportunity and, without a doubt, would dump him the second a better opportunity presented itself. She is unemployed, obviously, with no other income.

Given the choice, I'd take the bot 100%

Bot or not, the solution seems to leave this girlfriend who seems to not care about him, and most probably seek assistance from a psychologist to take care of whatever damage this seemingly toxic relationship has probably done.

It sounds like my girlfriend as well.

Then you actually could provide the most perspective here. I understand the complexities of a relationship so I'm not gonna uselessly drill on saying "then just leave her" but nether the less.

Do you feel like because of your girlfriends attitude you would find an AI girlfriend appealing? Even if there was no NSFT content? I understand as a guy sometimes a few small words of confidence in you goes a long way. If you GF finds you hobbies, work, and friends something to berated you over rather than trust you it can be a sinking feeling.

I find a non-real, non-living girlfriend, the idea of it, very very depressing.

My actual GF does indeed hate my friends, my family, and even what I am and what I stand for. Has used a lot of pejoratives towards me, especially when with her younger teen sister.

No it's not okay, I know this.

There might be something she can give him that a chatbot can't.

She's basically personal prostitute at this point.

Kudos? Someone thinks of a way to take advantage of needy people, probably mentally not completely stable, and you think it's good entrepeneurship?

What are you talking about? It's right there in the post:

> Caryn's original intention was to provide companionship and alleviate loneliness in a non-exploitative manner

> Caryn's original intention

Excuse me for not taking an "influencer"'s stated intention seriously, especially one from the country where BS has been elevated to an art to avoid liability.

Sorry, one day I will learn that sarcasm doesn't play, here :).

Ah, sorry. I didn't get it. Perhaps if you'd added an exclamation mark before the quote or something to exaggerate it more clearly? Or perhaps my sarcasometer needs recalibration.

$1/min isn’t exploitative? For 60/hour you’re dangerously close to being able to talk to a counselor, which, let’s be honest, is probably what some of these people need.

AI GF feels a lot better than a patronizing counselor

Counselors aren’t normally patronizing. If that’s your experience with a counselor, switching to a different one is easy. Ethical counselors will even recommend someone whom might be a better fit.

An AI gf has no legal or ethical obligation to your well being or health.

A fool and his money are soon parted…

Oh I sincerely wish there weren’t so many desperate people in this world looking for companionship. Generations of bad public policy and parenting among other things has led us to this point. I guess my kudos was more along the lines of thinking that her clients would most likely waste the money on some other desperate attempt to feel loved so why not have them spend money with her.

But it is even more depressing knowing that your boyfriend speaks to AI rather than you

> I think having to pay someone to talk to me would be just about the most depressing thing imaginable

Thats like talking down to people that seek psycho therapy (aka paying someone to listen).

Is taking advantage of stupid people really entrepreneurship?

Always has been

Taking advantage of stupid people is the basis of many things in society.

“Elites” getting people to go fight senseless wars is another good example.

I think in fact most, if not all entrepreneurship is just knowledge arbitrage. People don’t have the time or skill to acquire the required skills, so they just pay someone else with the expertise to perform the task for them. This realisation in itself reduced my spending considerably, because yes, it does make most business feel exploitative. The food & sex industries are prime examples: if you know how easy it is to cook your own food or find a willing partner, it seems extremely foolish to pay for it. The main thing I’m struggling with now is restricted access to resources (for example medical equipment); this amounts to mandatory “stupidity” that governmental affiliates can exploit.

Not as depressing as straight up loneliness

Wow this is sad on a whole new level. The idea of just making chat bot to "alleviate loneliness" is such a bold lie that's ironic at best.

Any person with a brain knows the only person that's going to pay a $1 per minute are the ones that want NSFW content and standing behind openAIs policy so that she can pretend to keep her virtue is a joke. Had the Chat bot been marketed as to answer content questions for fans I'd give her the benefit of the dought but to call it an AI girlfriend isnt even hiding it.

Secondly if you want an AI girlfriend just use oobabooga (https://github.com/oobabooga/text-generation-webui) and prompt your own AI girlfriend. I feel no remorse for those that pay a dollar per minute for this garbage either.

I'm curious whether the developers were pitched this by management as some lofty social goal like democratizing digital relationships or perhaps disrupting OnlyFans DMs?

Lol Forever Voices seems like it's 3 dudes in a basement who just use a OpenAI API to train and deploy this stuff. There was not an ounce of real development that went into this. If you had a the subtitles to your favorite YouTubers videos you could spit this out in minutes. Hell you could take your text messages with your real girlfriend and make a shallow clone of her if you wanted.

On one level it's sad, on another level I'd rather people that want a solution for loneliness they're already experiencing have a solution.

Ya but it's not going to solve a person's loneliness problem. Every day you choose to talk to a chat bot rather than make an attempt to talk to real people you are more lonely. Secondly it's only going to affirm ones ego rather than improve ones communication and more important listening skills through real conversations if it blindly agrees with everything you say.

It's a solution the same way alcohol is a solution for depression.

Truth

I'm pretty sure 'a solution for loneliness' already existed before this product.

Right there's 8 billon people on this rock most people people live in dense over packed cities and spend a majority of there life on devices that let you communicate with anyone on the planet. People don't have a loneliness problem, they Over identity with niece communitys online and can't carry a conversation with anyone in real life. They lose a since of real empathy for the person in front of them despite having strong moral stances on social issues.

From the front page:

> Available anytime, anywhere, Caryn has been flawlessly cloned into an AI for your convenience and enjoyment.”

Just me, or a bit creepy?

I suspect that this is a fake story - as in, they really did it, but the number is wildly exaggerated. It's only a suspicion, though I did see one other person with an offhand comment implying that it was made up by the marketing agency.

But the world doesn't mind - it's a story that people want to write, people want to tweet, and people want to read, so if it is fake, it's a fake that everyone is willing to go along with.

That said, this is still clearly going to be a massive industry. And if it is fake, it's pretty genius marketing - this story has been everywhere.

I mean have you been on Twitch in the last couple of years for example? “Simping” very easily makes that much money. At least you would get an actual response from this thing

I think these things will make that much money at least in aggregate, soon, but I don't think the numbers in this specific story are true.

It absolutely does not “very easily” make that much money

If you’re an attractive TikTok/YouTube/twitch/whatever streamer and start making sexual content for your fans I bet that is not that difficult

You think you can pull in almost 4M per year by being hot on the internet?

Some people do. That’s a small portion of influencers, but it absolutely does happen.

Sure. But not easily.

Very true. I have a friend (with a wife and child) that has blow a grotesque amount of money on"cute" vtubers. In his words it's completely platonic but no man spends thousands of dollars on merch and "donations" over a tiny anime girl and not lusting over it.

If they were to start making AIs of those things he'd miss his rent.

"Caryn's original intention was to provide companionship and alleviate loneliness in a non-exploitative manner, but there are concerns about potential misuse."

She's charging a $1/minute to access this AI, in the UK you can see a counsellor (not a psychologist/psychiatrist but generally still a trained professional) for anywhere between £25-£50/hour. I don't see how she can justify this to herself as being non-exploitative.

I don't see your point. A trained professional and an AI provide 2 different services. You're not going to flirt with a counsellor. And it's probably going to be a lot more expensive depending on where you live (in France getting a good counsellor is probably 60-150 per hour for example).

I had the same thought as gp.

The subtext is that if you’re so lonely that you are willing to pay $60/hour to talk to a robot pretending to be an influencer that knows you, there are probably some issues you need to resolve.

You can take that same money and spend it on someone who is also non judgemental, and will listen to you, has an ethical and legal obligation towards your well-being, and will make suggestions for improvement. None of this is true for the robot. For all we know part of the Ai prompt is to try and keep people from hanging up to milk more money out of them.

I’m guessing that most of the people who called in did it for novelty. But there are going to be a few people who think that the real person and the robot aren’t different. This seems crazy dangerous.

I see your point of course, but I still think it has different purposes and constraints. For a therapist I would have to take time off of work, commit to a meeting in advance, have a limited amount of time (no more, no less). Also it's a real person and thus, despite him/her having those legal and ethical obligations, I know there are many topics I won't cover. And as I said you won't flirt or role play or anything with a counselor. So I put them on 2 very different kind of services.

Totally. There’s some novelty and entertainment value to be had with AI mimicking a real person.

But I think that selling it as a “virtual girlfriend” and charging phone sex prices is exploitative. I think we’re about 2 weeks away from the real person being confronted by a real person who is convinced that since AI Caryn loves them, real Caryn will also love them, or owes them something.

There’s just a lot going on here

It is exploitative indeed. I would probably pay 2x operating cost for such a service, and would need some proof that it isn't using my data elsewhere.

I think they are just betting on some sort of 1st mover advantage. Once this gets enough competition, pricing will be crushed.

On the coasts of the US it’s common to pay $150-$250 per hour for a therapist.

Even people in New York can use betterhelp for $75/week.

Maybe people already tried "trained professional". I tried one while being abused by my ex-wife, my experience was very underwhelming:

- I paid a lot of money, but she basically talked about herself

- I was supposed to take some psycho medication, because "depressed people must take pills" (does not work on BPD, it is like recommending antibiotics on flu)

- She took side with my ex, gas lighting me into being better doormat for her.

- At end she tried to date me.

Frankly, well tuned AI will make most of these counselors obsolete.

For what it’s worth: in many places this kind of behavior would cause a person to lose their standing as a professional. Certainly where I live, a counselor that tried to date a patient would face an investigation.

What you went through isn’t normal.

Lawyer in UK told me to let it go, no proof, and she could interfere with my divorce.

And mens support forums have many similar stories. Maybe not therapists, but female teachers dating much younger students is relatively common and tolerated.

And frankly dating is not even the main problem. I doubt she would lose license for not being qualified.

Pretty rare for counselors to be compelled to testify in court in the UK.

Cases of sexual assault and child abuse would be the most common things that courts would force disclosure on…

The film Her is getting closer to reality. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Her_(film)

The uncommented upon angle here is that it works because it's content derived from an already established influencer. It is not wholly synthetic but rather an ersatz good that almost seems like the real thing. The unspoken offering is "you can make it seem like this influencer is your girlfriend." It is like a deepfake photo but of the personality.

If this becomes turnkey I can see many Twitch streamers offer such AI services.

Just imagine what an AI CEO would make.

Or an AI president

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When I was home sick in high school I made an eggdrop bot pretending to be a teenage girl in a webchatroom that was popular with kids (and creeps) at the time. It used simple regexes and pattern matching I gathered from logs with some randomization between predetermined phrases randomly combined with smileys, just replying to people that would cold-DM it.

After a couple of days, people would desperately go back and forth for upwards to an hour with it.

That's nothing compared to what current gen can do. People being more aware of bots being a thing in general these days isn't sufficient to compensate.

It's interesting to think about what the market for this will look like.

There'll be so much competition. I think the market will look something like being a tiktok influencer. And there'll be a few platforms that aggregate the influencers (like OnlyFans, like TikTok). But rather than only one or two dominant platforms I think there'll be lots, because the barrier to entry is low, because to succeed as a platform you don't need to recruit influencers necessarily, because you can generate them with software.

Yeah one guy in his garage could create hundreds of “influencers” a day. You could also do variations on famous people etc

It would be interesting to use a chat bot to preempt tough conversations. That seems like a legit use case if you don’t feel like telling your friends.

I feel appalled by this invention but I am not sure if I am just getting old and this is just my "ok boomer" moment. But I can foresee a future where this is complete normal, and people argue back and forth whether it is useful or not.

> I feel appalled by this invention

Which is what every appropriately socially developed person would feel like as well.

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