[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. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-09-29 23:01 UTC)