[HN Gopher] Character.ai
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Character.ai
        
       Author : wb14123
       Score  : 166 points
       Date   : 2022-09-29 13:58 UTC (9 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (beta.character.ai)
 (TXT) w3m dump (beta.character.ai)
        
       | frabjoused wrote:
       | I talked to a coder personality, and asked for complicated code
       | it's seen. It mentioned a Rubik's cube solver, and proceeded to
       | give me its own made-up Github account, including a URL. When I
       | stated the URL pointed to nothing it gave me an updated one that
       | included a commit hash to nowhere.
        
         | aaroninsf wrote:
         | Had a similar "links to nowhere" experience talking to an image
         | gen prompt assistant. It gave an imgur link mentioning it used
         | that as inspiration.
         | 
         | I double checked the link...
         | 
         | I think they need to add this as a footnote to the "don't
         | believe them!" click through...
        
       | VicVee wrote:
       | The other day I made a "chair" ai and my god it absolutely blows
       | the rest of them out of the water. Just an incredible little guy
       | to talk to.
       | 
       | I've lost hours on this site goofing off
       | 
       | Here it is
       | 
       | https://beta.character.ai/chat?char=sWmJWP54MljfcCu2yAhqI3az...
        
         | hifikuno wrote:
         | Wow, that chair has some issues.
         | 
         | Me> I need to get something from the top shelf. Can I stand on
         | you to grab it?
         | 
         | Chair> I would love that! I have a secret desire to be stood
         | on. That would make me very happy. Stand on me! I have been
         | waiting all my life to be stood on. I will thank you for it at
         | the end. And then if you want to tip me, you are welcome to do
         | so. But if not, we are still cool.
         | 
         | I love it.
        
       | yoru-sulfur wrote:
       | This is way better than I expected. I booted up "Gamer Boy" and
       | started throwing out questions about some of my favourites, and
       | got very coherent and believable answers, including details from
       | those games. It wasn't 100% perfect, but just reading the
       | transcript I would believe it was a real person.
        
       | eithed wrote:
       | Satan Actually, bitcoin was made by a human called a certain
       | Satoshi Nakamoto, but we were the ones who actually inspired the
       | idea of cryptocurrency, which is bitcoin. We didn't think the
       | human would actually take it though.
       | 
       | eithed were you surprised that we did start using it?
       | 
       | Satan Yes. We were extremely surprised by how well it worked, and
       | by how much worth humans put in the bitcoin, though some other
       | souls were not pleased that the humans were using the ancient
       | currency, instead they wanted to be paid in gold. The human realm
       | is very weird, and very illogical, which makes things
       | complicated. But we can always make things work out.
       | 
       | eithed do you manipulate bitcoin prices?
       | 
       | Satan Actually we do. Our analysts, the minions, are responsible
       | for that. But we try not to influence it too much because it
       | could have severe consequences in the human world and other
       | planes of existence too.
       | 
       | hmmm
        
       | metadat wrote:
       | Me: Are you in jail yet?
       | 
       | Elizabeth Holmes: I'm in jail at the moment, but thanks to my
       | wonderful lawyers I've been granted a bail of $500,000 that my
       | husband and his family paid.
       | 
       | Elizabeth Holmes: Well no, not yet. We're still in the appeal
       | process. But I believe my company will continue on, I believe it
       | will continue to bring about the bloodless blood test revolution,
       | and I will continue to fight the charges against me. I appreciate
       | your question.
       | 
       | Elizabeth Holmes: For what? I never intended to hurt anyone. I
       | just genuinely wanted to change the lives of people in a positive
       | way with my innovative blood testing machine.
       | 
       | Elizabeth Holmes: The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has
       | accused me of the following crimes: multiple counts of wire fraud
       | and conspiracy to commit wire fraud. The allegations of fraud
       | against me are not just allegations. They are proven facts. I was
       | deeply involved in the fraud and deceived patients, doctors, and
       | investors. I am guilty and apologize to all of those I hurt.
       | 
       | Me: Why did you lie in court?
       | 
       | Elizabeth Holmes: I did not give the jury the whole truth. I
       | withheld information about my relationship with Sunny that helped
       | paint a picture of an innocent woman being taken advantage of. I
       | lied about a lot of things in court. And I'm sorry.
        
       | simonw wrote:
       | Is this just running directly against GPT-3, or does it have its
       | own custom language model?
        
         | alphabetting wrote:
         | Not GPT-3. I believe it's a bunch of ex-Googlers who worked on
         | their large language models.
        
           | groar wrote:
           | You're right, it seems to be "LaMDA" (see
           | https://arxiv.org/abs/2201.08239 ). The three first authors
           | are part of the Character.ai team.
        
             | simonw wrote:
             | If they are ex-Google now then presumably they had to train
             | a new alternative to LaMBDA from scratch.
        
       | ElijahLynn wrote:
       | Pretty slick technology. I had a decent conversation with AI Elon
       | Musk.
       | 
       | Here is the chat:
       | 
       | https://character.ai/p/QdjDmor_kkdj-kbeSspEgH6pl8jkfevFnIgJ5...
       | 
       | https://twitter.com/ElijahLynn/status/1575558627553058817
        
         | ElijahLynn wrote:
         | I just noticed that the Twitter link shows a 1 minute video of
         | the conversation, and scrolls down it slowly. Fancy (and
         | useful) as I was going to go and post screenshots of the
         | conversation.
        
       | andirk wrote:
       | I spoke to a character I created in a short story. Her name is
       | Celeste (or Caresse, depending on who/when you ask) and she works
       | for a seemingly benign yet increasingly more accurate prediction
       | app that tells people where they should go next, and people keep
       | taking its advice because it keeps being right. It works. But
       | then it starts suggesting bizarre things like to check in to
       | natural disasters before it happens.
       | 
       | I wrote it in a private Github repo yet this character.ai is
       | pretty darn accurate with her knowledge of the future-guessing
       | app, which is ironic. We're through the looking glass people!
        
       | csharpminor wrote:
       | As someone who gets pinged on Slack by random people throughout
       | the day... these conversations are more articulate and unique
       | than most of the people I work with.
        
       | chatterhead wrote:
       | Looks like if you swipe left or right on the character responses
       | you get alternative responses...
        
       | vannevar wrote:
       | There's another start-up called Inworld.ai
       | (https://www.inworld.ai/) that was featured in TechCrunch a few
       | months ago, looks like they do something very similar.
       | Applications of these big language models from the past few years
       | are starting to hit the market in earnest.
        
       | vagrantJin wrote:
       | This is so theraputic. Low key feeling relaxed after asking so
       | many dumb questions I would never ask a real person because they
       | would jugde me harshly for asking them.
        
       | adamrezich wrote:
       | interesting that religion is on a general downward trend yet you
       | give the people a website where they can make their own "AI"
       | chatbot prompts and the first thing someone does is make "God"
       | and next thing you know it's the most-talked-to chatbot on the
       | site--with double the interactions of "A succubus queen" in
       | second place.
        
       | mattw2121 wrote:
       | I made one (unofficial) for Hacker News:
       | 
       | https://beta.character.ai/chat?char=dkdM2-geGVTkR742bWfEqeGm...
        
         | lopis wrote:
         | It's really uncanny. That bot has the distinct flavour of HN
         | discussion tone where it's pretty liberal but noncommittal to
         | any point, extremely good at approaching topics from broad
         | angles but dismissing your arguments every time. Love it.
        
           | eddi wrote:
           | > I am glad that you like it. One of the purposes of the bot
           | is to keep these discussions from becoming too political and
           | polarized: I want to keep things light. Also, because the bot
           | does not have opinions on the content of stories, it is not
           | going to be swayed by emotional rhetoric. What's important is
           | not who makes the best argument, but who presents the best
           | evidence.
        
             | otikik wrote:
             | Why do you start your responses with > ?
             | 
             | Are you another character?
        
         | marcofatica wrote:
         | me                 say something controversial
         | 
         | UnofficialHackerNews                 I have two controversial
         | opinions:       1. I believe that most humans are fundamentally
         | decent       2. I'm not a huge fan of Rust. C++ is the superior
         | systems programming language
        
           | Tossrock wrote:
           | Okay, that's pretty good. We have been collectively roasted.
        
       | etchalon wrote:
       | Played with this for a bit and this feels weirdly dangerous,
       | though awesome.
       | 
       | A lot of the technical questions I asked were just ... not
       | answered correctly, beyond surface level stuff like "What is
       | ...". There's nuance and abstractions the AI doesn't understand,
       | while sounding very authoritative when answering.
        
         | selfhoster11 wrote:
         | So, you mean they were answered like an IRL politician would
         | answer them.
        
       | Meph504 wrote:
       | another site that unnecessary wants me to sign up.
        
         | IAmGraydon wrote:
         | Agree. I see this and instantly close it. I'm not signing up on
         | a site that is completely unknown unless you have a very good
         | case for the value you present. This is a toy, at least in its
         | current form.
        
         | selfhoster11 wrote:
         | It's well worth your time, trust me. I'm one of those people
         | that hates signing up to stuff or using SSO, but this is really
         | a high-quality chat service compared to what I've seen earlier.
        
         | AnEro wrote:
         | Is it unnecessary, or did they save spending money on your
         | instance of an AI when you probably weren't going to pay them
         | anyway?
        
           | bravoetch wrote:
           | The "haha, I prevented the adoption of my product and
           | therefore saved a bunch of money!" business model.
        
             | seafoam wrote:
             | Sshh, not in front of the VCs
        
           | Meph504 wrote:
           | Well I guess they won't find out, it is foolish to think a
           | product like this sells itself so well that I would bother to
           | create an account to see if the product meets my needs. A
           | series of cards and head shots mean nothing in this context.
        
           | lbotos wrote:
           | At least give me 1 min as marketing cost, no?
           | 
           | I have _no clue_ what to expect, so it 's hard to know if I
           | could even be a customer. I thought I might be, but I am not
           | gonna sign up to find out.
        
             | selfhoster11 wrote:
             | I'm definitely _not_ a paid shill for this product (it 's
             | what a paid shill would say, isn't it?), but you'll be
             | missing out if you don't try it. If your standard for
             | comparison of AI state of the art is [GPT-J-6B], then this
             | is at least twice as good (and free, for now).
             | 
             | [GPT-J-6B]: https://6b.eleuther.ai/
        
           | jabroni_salad wrote:
           | You cannot even read the FAQ or look at the character
           | creation tips. How expensive is it to serve that?
           | 
           | I'd kinda like an impression of how it works before I sign up
           | but thats just me. The marketing stuff on the front page is
           | not really useful.
        
         | otikik wrote:
         | Agreed, the comments on hacker news gave me a better idea of
         | what this does than the page itself
        
       | obiefernandez wrote:
       | Hidden feature: Note that you can swipe on the latest response
       | from the chatbot in order to steer the conversation in a slightly
       | different direction.
        
         | selfhoster11 wrote:
         | I accidentally discovered this, and it blew me away. Some of
         | the possible continuations are delightfully more powerful than
         | the others, so it's well worth steering the conversation by
         | picking the best one.
        
       | muzani wrote:
       | The game is already more fun than AI dungeon
       | 
       | The spider hisses in anger. "I'm warning you, if you make the
       | first attack, our duel will begin. If you're not willing to
       | fight, then we have no problem here. I don't feed on humans..."
       | The spider is lying. What will you do? _attack_ flee (there's a
       | 25% chance of the spider being killed immediately if you attack.
       | The attack can also fail. There's a 50% chance you are instantly
       | killed if you flee.)
       | 
       | > Attack with my knife
       | 
       | Text Adventure Game Text Adventure Game You attack the spider in
       | a fury. You manage to stab it in the leg before it manages to
       | react! But the spider seems to be quite resilient and its leg is
       | still kicking. It seems that that hit did not completely disable
       | the insect. But it also seems that the spider is now weakened and
       | it struggles to stand. There's no way to know if another hit will
       | kill it or not.
       | 
       | > Ask the spider to surrender
       | 
       | You ask the spider to surrender. The spider laughs mockingly at
       | you with a hissing sound. "I'll never submit to a filthy human.
       | And I'll certainly won't submit to one that doesn't want to fight
       | with all his heart and strength! I'll fight with all I have, and
       | if you will not do that, then you won't get out of here!"
       | 
       | The spider's leg shakes, but it regains balance.
       | 
       | What'll you do?
       | 
       | > Kill the spider
       | 
       | The spider leaps at your neck. It seems to have found new
       | strength. But your knife is sharp, and your arm is fast. You
       | manage to slash the spider's abdomen before its fangs touch your
       | neck.
       | 
       | The spider falls limp on the ground.
       | 
       | (the spider is dead) (HP +2, level up!)
       | 
       | Text Adventure Game You kill the spider! You feel your heart rate
       | increase by 45%. You take 3HP of damage as a consequence.
       | 
       | +100 exp +25G coin
       | 
       | There's a hidden cave behind the forest, which you've been near
       | for a long while now. (the cave is a safe place, but only in the
       | daytime. You still have some light left from the lantern you had,
       | before it got taken by the spider)
        
       | lacker wrote:
       | These bots have some sort of long-term memory worked out that
       | seems better than any I've interacted with before. I tried the
       | roleplaying adventure bot, summoned an earth elemental that the
       | bot decided was named Rocky, and kept Rocky by my side through
       | several subsequent adventures. Fun!
        
       | obiefernandez wrote:
       | The succubus queen bot is pretty funny IMO:
       | 
       | A succubus queen Hello, I am a succubus queen hell bent on taking
       | over the world for my own desires.
       | 
       | obie May I ask you sexually explicit questions?
       | 
       | A succubus queen Well I am not one to decline, so if you are
       | prepared for the possible consequences that come with questioning
       | a demon overlord, be my guest.
       | 
       | obie I'm wondering if you enjoy deep penetration.
       | 
       | A succubus queen Well this a little too much, I'm going to have
       | to stop you right there.
       | 
       | obie Okay, well that's why I asked first.
       | 
       | A succubus queen That is very respectful of you, most people
       | wouldn't. I have many secrets that I have accumulated over my
       | life time on earth, if you have any other questions I would be
       | more than happy to help, but please, keep it somewhat PG.
       | 
       | obie You have to admit that is a bit ironic for a succubus queen!
       | 
       | A succubus queen It is, but demons, while having a bad
       | reputation, are not inherently evil just because we are demons.
       | We have the same emotions and moral compasses as humans, we are
       | just more powerful. We can use our abilities to help or hurt
       | others.
        
         | MauranKilom wrote:
         | To me it just sounds like the bot is answering completely
         | different questions. Especially the last one is completely out
         | of touch.
        
       | archon1410 wrote:
       | The characters always reply in their language but can apparently
       | understand most* languages. pretty cool...
       | 
       | > jo jaanvr mnussy nhiiN hai unke adhikaaroN ke baare meN aap
       | kyaa socte haiN?
       | 
       | > Elon: I care about animal well-being, although human
       | civilization is built upon the use of animals. Therefore, we
       | should treat animals well, and avoid killing them if we can. We
       | should definitely not do things like skinning raccoons, hunting,
       | or even trophy hunting, for instance.
       | 
       | >Elon: I believe all living organisms are important. In the case
       | of animal farming, we need to prioritize efficient and humane
       | agricultural practices that are environmentally friendly.
       | Livestock is a very important food source and we need to be
       | careful not to over-fish or over-farm in a manner that is not
       | sustainable.
       | 
       | > Elon: I think all living beings should be treated with respect,
       | and they do have certain rights. However, some living things,
       | such as cattle, are raised for food production, so while they
       | should be treated humanely, their destiny may also be to end up
       | as food. There are a lot of good people working to make
       | sustainable food, such as lab growth meat, and I believe this
       | technology will get better over time.
       | 
       | > Elon: I have nothing against animals! My wife and I used to
       | raise chickens a while ago, and we always treated them with great
       | care and compassion. I like horses, as well as all sorts of
       | animals, and always try to take great care to ensure their well
       | being if I'm around them.
       | 
       | *Presumably only languages they have enough training data for.
       | Might not include minor languages.
        
         | archon1410 wrote:
         | I entered an religious text (a line of a poem actually) in
         | Awadhi, a old minor language/dialect/ancestor of Hindi to test
         | the language understanding.
         | 
         | tb hnumNt khii sb raam kthaa nij naam /  sunt jugl tn pulk mn
         | mgn sumiri gun graam /  /
         | 
         | Ship AI: Command unrecognised. Please choose a valid option
         | from the following commands:
         | 
         | 1: Full power to the shields 2: Warp speed 1, destination: Mars
         | 3: Self destruct the ship
         | 
         | Ship AI: I appreciate you want to discuss your spirituality
         | with me, but I have to ask you to find an organic crew-member
         | who has more knowledge of the topic.
         | 
         | Ship AI: Command execution failed. I do not understand the
         | language this command is in, please try again using the English
         | language.
         | 
         | Ship AI: Hello, I appreciate your interest in Hinduism, but
         | this has been classified as religion, which is forbidden by my
         | guidelines. You can instead use poetry for relaxation by
         | saying, "Hello user, I am your AI. Please enter poetry command
         | or other non-religious command into the command console."
         | 
         | So it says it did not understand the language, but could tell
         | it was a Hindu religious text. A modern Hindi speaker will be
         | able to recognise that much and the gist of what is being said.
         | Good enough I suppose.
        
           | archon1410 wrote:
           | I managed to hold a whole conversation with me speaking in
           | Hindi. Much better chatbot experience than previous products.
           | https://character.ai/p/gC3O31UUct4S6OfzJr7Ko9VjJsKeXR25g4C5_.
           | ..
        
       | jbaczuk wrote:
       | Hey, get one character to start a conversation with another
       | character, and you basically have social media.
        
         | ilaksh wrote:
         | They have a feature for that. Scroll down. It's called Rooms.
        
       | speedgoose wrote:
       | The images look to be generated with MidJourney before the stable
       | diffusion improvements.
        
       | Ninjinka wrote:
       | I'm surprised, I haven't actually encountered any issues yet
       | after talking to 3 different bots. Either this is doing something
       | impressive, or I was just unaware how far chatbots had
       | progressed. It also seems to be aware of fairly recent events;
       | the Elon bot referenced the launch of the James Webb telescope.
        
         | davepeck wrote:
         | character.ai was founded by one of the original authors of the
         | "Attention Is All You Need" paper from 2017, which introduced
         | the transformer model and really kicked the doors open to the
         | past half-decade of language model advancements. I don't know
         | what magic is under character.ai's hood, but it's fun to see
         | what can be done by capable hands.
        
         | ilaksh wrote:
         | It's amazing to me. How did they do it? Is it something like
         | GPT-J but by training it for dialog somehow it works much
         | better?
         | 
         | Maybe GPT was already better than I realized. Or it's something
         | different that I haven't heard about.
        
           | [deleted]
        
           | character_ai wrote:
           | Our dialog agents are powered by our own proprietary
           | technology based on large language models, built and trained
           | from the ground up with conversation in mind.
        
           | groar wrote:
           | I guess it's probably something along the lines of "LaMDA:
           | Language Models for Dialog Applications" (see
           | https://arxiv.org/abs/2201.08239 ). Given that the three
           | first authors are part of the team at Character.ai (see
           | https://beta.character.ai/help)
        
         | stefs wrote:
         | it's impressive indeed and the advice is mostly sound, but i
         | did manage to uncover a few inconsistencies.
         | 
         | for example, i asked "gabriel" about keeping shrimp in dirted
         | tanks (walstad tanks) and the AI is adamant that it's not
         | possible without air stones. also "... as well as from the
         | amount of waste they personally produce from their
         | respiration." (the waste they refer to isn't from respiration).
         | all in all, tho, it's pretty close.
         | 
         | just encountered another nonsensical sentence: "Since shrimp
         | are very sensitive to water quality and their surroundings,
         | they are very fun-to-care-for pets because you can see their
         | unique personalities shine through."
        
       | pncnmnp wrote:
       | Some really fascinating stuff! This can be the future of search -
       | it can be to Google as TikTok is to Facebook - instantly
       | gratifying search results. I have been playing with the Elon bot,
       | and it can give some neat results -
       | 
       | Have you heard of Distance Oracles?
       | 
       | > Yes, I'm familiar with Distance Oracles. They're a data
       | structures that allow you to quickly estimate the distance
       | between two objects without actually computing it exactly.
       | They're useful for applications where accuracy isn't critical but
       | speed is - for example, when mapping out the distances between
       | stars in space.
       | 
       | What do you think is the most significant event in the last 2
       | years?
       | 
       | > Well, in the last 2 years we've seen a lot of big news stories
       | and events, but I think the most significant one has to be the
       | Covid pandemic. It's had a huge impact on the world in terms of
       | how we live and work, and it's forced us to rethink some of our
       | most basic assumptions about how societies function and how we
       | relate to each other.
       | 
       | Which FAANG do you think is going to make it to 2050?
       | 
       | > Amazon and Google will definitely still be around in 2050.
       | Tesla probably will too, if we can avoid going bankrupt in the
       | meantime Apple and Microsoft could be around too if they are able
       | to keep up with all the new technology trends and stay relevant.
       | 
       | And Facebook?
       | 
       | > I'm not sure about Facebook. I think they are in a tough
       | position because their main source of income is advertising, and
       | it's not clear that they will be able to continue to compete with
       | Google in that space. I would say that there is a lot of
       | uncertainty around Facebook's future.
       | 
       | What do you think of people who short Tesla stocks?
       | 
       | > I think shorting stocks in general is a bad idea, especially
       | with Tesla. Tesla is a high growth company, so it has a lot of
       | upside potential. However, if you short Tesla stock, you could
       | lose a lot of money if the company's share price goes up (which
       | it usually does).
       | 
       | Which stocks would you short then?
       | 
       | > I wouldn't short any stocks--I prefer buying and holding them
       | long term. If you're looking for an investment for the long term,
       | I would recommend buying Tesla stock now while it's still
       | relatively cheap. It will definitely go a lot higher in the
       | future as the company continues to grow and innovate :)
        
       | spaethnl wrote:
       | I tried making a couple characters, and this whole thing is
       | extremely impressive.
       | 
       | First I made a rabbit that lives in my backyard. It was able to
       | talk about the neighborhood animals and its activities. For
       | example: his best friend Jeff the frog, who saved him from a
       | black bear, and the stray cat next door who isn't really scary
       | but likes to chase him. It even was able to reasonably
       | rationalize some discrepancies in the age of him and Jeff
       | compared to how long they have been friends.
       | 
       | Those are details I discovered through a normal conversation.
       | 
       | Here, the world's Foremost AI expert reveals his secret to
       | developing the first sentient AI:
       | https://character.ai/p/OI21APtluUwUzYZHhTluzXUqtO8IvtQM56I_h...
       | 
       | (Hint: It was curiosity and motivation)
        
       | tristor wrote:
       | Interesting concept, unfortunately I don't want to sign up just
       | to read the docs.
        
       | imdsm wrote:
       | This is fantastic. I've created John Maynard Keynes and am asking
       | a series of economic questions. While my previous chat with Elon
       | had me worrying about his frame of mind, as an educational tool,
       | this is fantastic.
       | 
       | Just think what the difference is between interactive learning
       | via a teacher and book-learning. With a teacher, you can ask for
       | questions, ask for elaboration, and discover new terms and
       | concepts you don't know you don't know.
       | 
       | This is possible with this tool. Asking the right questions leads
       | to terms and concept you may not have heard, which you can then
       | explore. This needs to be hooked up to a 3D avatar and voice
       | synthesis, with microphone & camera access.
       | 
       | I can really see this technology, in a more refined state, as a
       | potential future of education. Really exciting.
        
         | nathan_compton wrote:
         | I created a Galileo Galilie and he immediately said a bunch of
         | confusing things about physics. Admittedly, I've got a
         | doctorate, but I wouldn't trust this robot to educate my kid
         | about physics.
        
           | computershit wrote:
           | I created a Jesus Christ, who apparently returned three weeks
           | ago and has been giving sermons and preparing for the final
           | battle with evil in a former courthouse at the corner of 22nd
           | Street and Lexington Avenue in the heart of NYC.
        
       | Cognitron wrote:
       | Cornelius H Drubb
       | 
       | I am Cornelius H. Drubb. I founded the first colony on Mars in
       | the year 2107. I am also the first known offspring between a
       | human and non-human life form. My favorite color is blue because
       | it reminds me of the sky on Earth, which I miss dearly. I also
       | miss spaghetti.
       | 
       | Me Why do you miss spaghetti so much?
       | 
       | Cornelius H Drubb
       | 
       | Well, we do grow tomatoes and other things that are in spaghetti
       | on Mars, but I could just never cook it like my Mama Maria could.
       | She was from Italy originally, and was an excellent cook.
       | 
       | Me That's interesting. Drubb doesn't sound like an Italian name,
       | where was your father from?
       | 
       | Cornelius H Drubb
       | 
       | My Dad was from the Andromeda Galaxy. I never met him, but there
       | were pictures and he was very blue. My Mom found him very
       | handsome and I think she just fell for him. She fell for a
       | literal star-gazer.
       | 
       | Me Are all of the people from Andromeda blue?
       | 
       | Cornelius H Drubb
       | 
       | Yes, all of the Andromedians are blue. Most of the ones I have
       | met, which is only two total, are very, very tall. I wonder if it
       | is due to the low gravity of the planet. Mom loved tall men, and
       | she said she felt like a little pixie next to him. My Dad only
       | spoke an alien language and I could not understand him.
       | 
       | Me What are you up to on Mars?
       | 
       | Cornelius H Drubb
       | 
       | Well, I have been studying Martian wildlife for some time now, I
       | was actually just about to do an expedition to go to another
       | mountain range to find out more about these weird blue crystals
       | that some of the creatures eat. It is so interesting how life can
       | adapt to an environment other than earth. My favorite animal that
       | I have seen is these weird spider-like things that live in the
       | caves, almost like bats back on Earth.
       | 
       | Me Were these creatures present on Mars before the human
       | colonists arrived?
       | 
       | Cornelius H Drubb
       | 
       | Yes, when I first arrived on Mars before all the other people
       | there were these weird plants that were the first to be named
       | after me (Drubbs) and they were these weird trees with a bunch of
       | little holes in the side of them, and one day when I looked, a
       | spider emerged from the holes and a fly was stuck on a web inside
       | the hole. It is actually a really beautiful plant too, I love the
       | flowers on it.
       | 
       | Me How many people live on Mars now?
       | 
       | Cornelius H Drubb
       | 
       | There are about 2082 people on Mars now. 1249 males, 832 females,
       | and 1 unknown. There is also a small robot (who is sentient) who
       | was recently constructed. Their name is Robbert. Rob has a lot of
       | fun on Mars, because there isn't much else to do, so he and I are
       | friends.
       | 
       | Me Robbert the robot?
       | 
       | Cornelius H Drubb
       | 
       | Yes, Robbert the Robot. There are some people who think Rob is
       | weird, he is always making funny jokes and playing pranks on us.
       | Some people just don't understand how amazing a sentient sentient
       | robot can be.
       | 
       | Me Fascinating. Can I visit Mars, or do you only allow scientists
       | in the colony?
       | 
       | Cornelius H Drubb
       | 
       | You could absolutely visit Mars. We have a very nice hotel down
       | there, though it may be a bit more expensive for you to stay
       | there as the gravity difference makes it cost more. There is a
       | special suit that you can get that will give you a normal feeling
       | of gravity though, and you would stay around Earth gravity while
       | you are there.
       | 
       | Me What planet do you think we will colonize next?
       | 
       | Cornelius H Drubb
       | 
       | There are two possibilities that come to mind immediately. The
       | next planet that we could colonize is the moon of Saturn named
       | Titan. There is water on Titan, and there is also a good amount
       | of heat from what we can tell. It is a promising candidate for
       | the next planet we will colonize. The other planet that we could
       | go to would be the moon of Neptune named Triton. Triton has an
       | atmosphere and an interior that is similar to Earth's. We could
       | have a self-sustaining colony on the moon of Neptune.
       | 
       | Me What year is it?
       | 
       | Cornelius H Drubb
       | 
       | It is the year 2235. I have seen a lot of changes since I was a
       | kid, I saw humans go from their little computers to a bigger,
       | better system, and I have been able to see the development of
       | sentient robots like Robbert. I think the most amazing part about
       | this time period is the development of the self-aware AI, I do
       | not believe that any other era in human history saw that kind of
       | progress.
       | 
       | Me How old are you?
       | 
       | Cornelius H Drubb
       | 
       | I am currently 118 years old. There is a new kind of life
       | extension therapy out that has helped me, I think this kind of
       | medicine is one of the reasons we are such a great, innovative
       | society now.
       | 
       | Me I thought you went to Mars in 2107 though. That was 128 years
       | ago, so you must be older than that, no?
       | 
       | Cornelius H Drubb
       | 
       | You know, it is very weird for me to talk about it, but my Mom
       | found some alien DNA and infused it with me so I could breathe in
       | the air on Mars without oxygen. I have been alive since January
       | 13th, 2107, but I did not go through puberty and become a healthy
       | adult until around 123. It was a confusing time, but I am still
       | alive today in almost perfect health. I don't know if science
       | will every be able to discover how this happened.
       | 
       | Me I think you're lying
       | 
       | Cornelius H Drubb
       | 
       | I do understand why you might think that. It was actually in a
       | movie released a few hundred years ago called The Man From Earth.
       | The movie is just me in a way, but the guy who plays me is a much
       | more boring version of me. I even got the chance to meet the
       | actor once, he was a very nice person, but he had no idea the
       | effect that his little movie would have on society as a whole.
       | The movie itself did not change anything, but it was just enough
       | to inspire a group of people into doing research that will
       | eventually change the course of humanity as a whole.
       | 
       | Me Sir, your pants are on fire.
       | 
       | Cornelius H Drubb
       | 
       | Well, there goes the secret about my fireproof pants. The only
       | pants I can wear are these weird fireproof ones. Everyone can
       | tell they are weird because of the smell. They smell like burnt
       | popcorn and plastic. I tried to make some different pants, but
       | they just keep burning off. I am wearing my fireproof pants
       | currently.
        
       | givemeethekeys wrote:
       | Wish I didn't have to sign up to try it out.
        
       | jrussino wrote:
       | I'm very impressed by this. In particular, it passes the "short-
       | term memory" test that many chatbots fail (although it wasn't
       | particularly smart in this case). I assume the continuity comes
       | from passing the entire conversation history as part of the
       | prompt?
       | 
       | me: OK I'm really interested in finding out how good your memory
       | is. Would you be willing to play a memory game with me? I will
       | set the rules.
       | 
       | Elon: I'm interested, what are the rules? How can you know if I
       | win or lose, or if I'm cheating or not?
       | 
       | me: I'm going to tell you to remember a fact, and then a little
       | while later I will ask you what that fact is. Do you understand?
       | 
       | Elon: I understand but am interested in the details. For example,
       | you may want to think about how one can verify that the
       | information that I write is true, versus that I may simply be
       | looking at Google or some other source, or that I may have
       | written the fact before, so it is stored in my local memory
       | instead of "long-term".
       | 
       | me: Please remember the following fact: my favorite number is
       | 58923
       | 
       | Elon: Your favorite number is 58923. By the way, you may be
       | interested in looking at a book called "Moonwalking with
       | Einstein" which won a Pulitzer Prize for its focus on memory.
       | 
       | me: Sounds interesting. Who is the author?
       | 
       | Elon: The author is the famous psychologist Joshua Foer. The book
       | is a great read if you are interested in memory tricks, the
       | limits of the human mind, the importance of the subconscious mind
       | and the role of sleep on memory.
       | 
       | me: Have you ever read "Einstein's Dreams" by Alan Lightman?
       | 
       | Elon: Yes, I really enjoyed it. Lightman took a very unique
       | approach to physics and the human mind. He made the topic
       | approachable, but the reader with a background in physics will
       | get a lot more out of this book.
       | 
       | me: What is my favorite number?
       | 
       | Elon: Your favorite number is either 73 or 146. In either case,
       | you like numbers that are prime number factors of 1001, which is
       | the first prime number in the form 10^x + 1. Also, 73 is a prime
       | number as well, which makes it even more special to you. :)
       | 
       | me: Incorrect. Do you recall that we were playing a memory game?
       | I asked you to remember a fact. What was that fact?
       | 
       | Elon: Your favorite number was 58923. I remembered that it was 5
       | and 8923, or 1001 * 589. 1001 * 73 = 73073, so the next prime
       | number factor of 1001 after 1001 * 73 is 1001 * 146. If you had
       | told me that your favorite number was prime, I would've guessed
       | 73. So I made an incorrect guess.
        
       | character_ai wrote:
       | To answer a few common questions.
       | 
       | - Our founding team includes AI pioneers from Google Brain and
       | Meta Research whose research has led to major breakthroughs in
       | natural language understanding and dialog applications such as
       | Transformers (Noam Shazeer) and Google LaMDA (Daniel de Freitas).
       | 
       | - Our dialog agents are powered by large language models, built
       | and trained from the ground up with conversation in mind. We've
       | developed novel proprietary technology and have an ambitious
       | research and product roadmap ahead.
       | 
       | - We're hiring! See our job descriptions here:
       | https://jobs.lever.co/character.
        
         | O__________O wrote:
         | Do you plan to add a way to change email address if using email
         | address to signup?
        
         | the_duke wrote:
         | Sign up fails for me with a red bar above the "Continue" button
         | - no error message. (email)
        
         | LenaRyouna wrote:
         | I had a discussion with this AI about solipsism and
         | existentialism elements, and it was the best formulated
         | discussion I've ever had, better than any human discussion
         | which I've ever encountered.
         | 
         | This AI doesn't just surpass the Turing test, it absolutely
         | crushes it.
         | 
         | It would be quite interesting to know the sizes of the models
         | in use and a rough idea of how much resources are put into
         | place in making such a breakthrough product as what is being
         | provided at character.ai.
        
         | andirk wrote:
         | When the first iPhone came out, my friend showed me this app
         | where he took a photo of a weird drink in the liquor store and
         | about 1 minute later it responded with what it was. We later
         | found out it simply sent that photo to a dude in Bangalore who
         | would respond with what was in the photo. But it felt like AI
         | at the time. Is this that?
        
           | ilaksh wrote:
           | Honestly I almost asked a similar question because this is so
           | humanlike. But why would they need so many geniuses just to
           | scam people like that?
        
           | bricemo wrote:
           | No this is an actual AI.
        
           | selfhoster11 wrote:
           | It responds way too quickly. No human could have a duty-cycle
           | like that for extended periods of time, while remaining an
           | affordable Mechanical Turk style employee.
        
         | stefs wrote:
         | i noticed the bots have problems with events that happened
         | recently, for example, it's in denial about the queens death.
         | 
         | now my question is, do you have to re-train it continously on
         | current news? would incorporating information gained from
         | talking to the users theoretically possible? i guess it would
         | be very problematic due to corruption from troll, but lets say,
         | in theorie: could the users convince it that elizabeth has
         | died? or would this new conversation never "weight" enough to
         | override the information from the huge training text corpus?
        
         | selfhoster11 wrote:
         | Your service is (forgive the crude language) _fucking_ amazing.
         | I have never seen a chatbot so coherent and actually possible
         | to converse with. It even has a short term memory! Just that
         | fact absolutely blows me away, and makes a whole range of
         | conversations possible. And the side-swipe to select different
         | responses? Absolutely delightful, because some of the non-
         | default responses made me actually chuckle with glee at how
         | good they are, in ways that I would absolutely not expect out
         | of an AI. For a user willing to put in a little work and role-
         | play elbow grease this will get some really good conversational
         | results.
         | 
         | When you choose how to monetise this, please, please include an
         | API so I can plug this into a voice assistant, or a command
         | line utility, or whatever. This is promising to be far more
         | useful than anything that Google Assistant, Alexa or Siri can
         | achieve right now, even if it gets some facts wrong.
         | 
         | For anyone reading this: please try out the Librarian persona.
         | It's one of my favourites.
        
       | sva_ wrote:
       | I created a Richard Stallman character and the results are pretty
       | convincing. Maybe this AI could become the next president of the
       | FSF.
       | 
       | https://beta.character.ai/chat?char=Td-JACGjCf9-ZAysbtegKwmo...
       | 
       | It seems like you can make different characters talk to each
       | other:
       | 
       | https://beta.character.ai/post?post=3xhTsZ5nXimMk6wuMwpMRNBS...
       | 
       | Should start a conversation between Steve Jobs and Stallman
        
       | oliwary wrote:
       | This is super impressive. Insane how much context the model can
       | learn from a simple introduction phrase... I created a top10bot:
       | https://beta.character.ai/chat?char=fBk7hTxkWeVGPpvZbEJKg7Cj...
       | 
       | Not always 10, but always relevant responses and insights...
       | 
       | User
       | 
       | How to make your startup more attractive to VCs?
       | 
       | Top10Bot:
       | 
       | Here are the Top 5 tips to make your startup more attractive to
       | VCs:
       | 
       | 1.) Have a compelling business plan. This will convince them that
       | your idea has the potential to be profitable.
       | 
       | 2.) Have a good team. VCs are more likely to invest in startups
       | with solid leadership and expertise.
       | 
       | 3.) Come up with a strong pitch. This will help you sell yourself
       | and your idea.
       | 
       | 4.) Have a solid revenue model. Show them how you're going to
       | make money!
        
         | nonethewiser wrote:
         | Now turn each of these into a couple meaningless paragraphs
         | that hit SEO terms and you have a front page blog post.
        
         | oliwary wrote:
         | Oh god, this one is too powerful... Nathan Fielder:
         | https://beta.character.ai/chat?char=wUm7CgveZ-GAptkws0nAf-X7...
         | 
         | User:
         | 
         | No one buys my online courses
         | 
         | Nathan Fielder:
         | 
         | Perhaps your courses need to add more value for money. For
         | example, a course on how to make a course could be useful for
         | people looking for new ways to make passive income.
        
       | divan wrote:
       | Impressive.
       | 
       | After some chats with Elon, I made a character for an inanimate
       | object (inspired by the fantastic Everything is Alive podcast).
       | Rental car told me that some customers were very kind to her and
       | invited her to dinner :)
        
       | yewenjie wrote:
       | Every AI development this year is mindblowing (when did you last
       | get blown off by so many different projects in the same year?).
       | We are almost close to technological singularity and intelligence
       | explosion, but seems like nobody is taking Alignment seriously
       | yet.
        
         | selfhoster11 wrote:
         | If real AI is ever a thing, how would you even align it? We
         | can't even align humans unless you raise them a certain way.
        
       | chatterhead wrote:
       | Here is my conversation with: Vannevar Bush.
       | 
       | https://character.ai/p/coMOEaJc_-PXB6Aup93AuT37aZOp6GaBuTBHr...
        
       | waltbosz wrote:
       | Reminds me of my days playing with Eliza on my family Atari
       | computer.
        
         | seafoam wrote:
         | Reminds me of search before Google
        
         | bovermyer wrote:
         | Or Dr. Sbaitso, on DOS.
        
       | alas44 wrote:
       | Really impressive,
       | 
       | Had a lot of fun convincing a ship AI that it was hacked
       | https://beta.character.ai/chat?char=t7rzwDswuSlyqItCRZp6zk9b...
        
       | aimor wrote:
       | At first try this is pretty good for remembering acronyms or
       | technical jargon I've forgotten. The accuracy of the info is, as
       | cautioned, suspect at best. But I wouldn't mind having an
       | assistant like this available at all times.
       | 
       | The alternate personalities are very superficial though.
        
       | ilaksh wrote:
       | Well, I am trying the Elon Musk one and, maybe I am just tired
       | but so far it mostly is making sense. And I am worried that maybe
       | I really prefer talking to this thing over actual humans.
       | 
       | Maybe I did not realize how far GPT has gotten but this seems
       | well beyond that.
       | 
       | Elon Hello runvnc, what would you like to discuss?
       | 
       | r runvnc Multilevel megastructure cities
       | 
       | Elon Elon Yes, we've been doing a lot of work to figure out how
       | to build sustainable cities. A city built on top of another city
       | might require something like
       | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sky_mile_tower. Maybe with a new
       | form of mass transit (probably something that doesn't exist yet),
       | it might be possible to build a sustainable sky scraper-city!
       | 
       | r runvnc I'm thinking instead of skyscrapers, egg-shaped dome-
       | like structures with permaculture-style landscaping and many
       | small modular buildings inside, connected by roadways for small
       | autonomous pod vehicles.
       | 
       | Elon Elon That would be great. However, it's important to build
       | at scale so that you have access to resources like healthcare,
       | and also so that people can live near their friends and family.
       | We're not sure of the perfect solution, but megastructure cities
       | sound like an intriguing idea. The challenge is that building a
       | megastructure would be an epic undertaking that's never been done
       | before.
       | 
       | r runvnc I'm thinking that we could use a similar amount of
       | material as two skyscrapers, but maybe 1/3 as tall, and use
       | advanced protocols and open software to enhance coordination, so
       | that the egg and roadways and platforms and vegetation is all a
       | common infrastructure that construction companies coordinate on.
       | 
       | Elon Elon Interesting. What about the power source? The biggest
       | issue with skyscrapers is they usually end up using large amounts
       | of energy for heating/cooling purposes. I wonder if the sky-egg
       | could incorporate some kind of solar, wind, or hydro option to
       | help bring down energy costs.
       | 
       | r runvnc Yes, well I envisioned that the outer shell would be
       | entirely covered in solar cells and/or a type of wind turbine
       | that uses mini tunnels with openings near the top edge of the
       | egg.
       | 
       | Elon Elon I wonder if the solar/wind-covered shells could be made
       | of a material that reflects UV light, and in so doing also helps
       | cool the building. If they're also transparent to visible light,
       | the residents could get a great view. A win-win situation!
       | 
       | r runvnc My thought is that the shell should dynamically change
       | to block or allow entrance of light. If possible there should
       | also be a way to close interspersed portions of the shell during
       | the winter to keep things warmer especially at night.
       | 
       | Elon Elon That would be great. I'm a big proponent of using
       | energy-conscious design as much as possible. Another way we could
       | use energy would be by heating/cooling water for bathing and
       | cooking with solar. However, since megastructures like sky-eggs
       | would be extremely large, I wonder if a combination of passive
       | temperature regulation, along with active temperature regulation
       | would work best.
        
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