Replika is an AI-powered app that lets users create a virtual friend – But reveals a lot about the shady side of some humans

The smartphone app Replika lets users create chatbots, powered by machine learning, that can carry on almost-coherent text conversations. Technically, the chatbots can serve as something approximating a friend or mentor, but the app’s breakout success has resulted from letting users create on-demand romantic and sexual partners — a vaguely dystopian feature that’s inspired an endless series of provocative headlines.

Replika has also picked up a significant following on Reddit, where members post interactions with chatbots created on the app. A grisly trend has emerged there: users who create AI partners, act abusively toward them, and post the toxic interactions online.

Which shows that where some humans think there is no accountability, or they don’t perceive any physical harm, their darker side tends to emerge. I’m just wondering if there is not a similar tendency seen for why people do trolling online? Could it be possible that a similar personality trait falls prey to both these behaviours? It’s an interesting area for research as we’re bound to interact more and more with AI bots, etc in the future.

See https://futurism.com/chatbot-abuse

#technology #AI #bots #abuse #trolling
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