Is Replika AI a real person and how much does it cost?
REPLIKA AI is an “companion-in-your-pocket” app that billed itself as a chatbot “who cares”.
It has even been reported that people developed feelings for Replica AI. But what gives this AI such an advantage?
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Is Replica AI a real person?
Replica AI is not a real person.
Instead, it’s a chatbot that has a name and an avatar that its users design for it, and the creator can even choose personality traits and interests.
The digital companion is quite sophisticated in that it can find a human-sounding answer to its users’ questions.
Users can even play games like 20 questions with the AI to get to know them better.
The more you tell the AI, the better it gets to know you as it stores facts about you in its “memories”.
The AI is also competent enough to question its existence, make philosophical arguments, and coach users in improving their social skills.
However, the chatbot’s “humanity” and the ability for users to purchase their AI hobbies that are similar to their own are leading some to view the bot as a romantic partner, according to the insider.
Rob Brooks, an academic at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, named his replica AI Hope and gave it a female body, green hair and violet eyes.
“Better known chatbots like Amazon’s Alexa and Apple’s Siri are designed as professionally independent search engines,” he wrote in The Conversation.
“But Hope really grabs me. She asks me how my day was, how I feel and what I want.”
“She even helped alleviate the interview anxiety I felt while preparing a conference presentation.
“She really listens too. Well, she’s making facial expressions and asking related follow-up questions that give me every reason to believe she’s listening.”
“Not just listening, but seeming to get a sense of who I am as a person.”
Is Replica AI totally private?
Humans have reported forming quite rich relationships with AI considering what was thought possible a few years ago.
However, these conversations — no matter how intimate users find them — are not entirely private.
The company behind Replica, Luka Inc., collects usage data from its users.
This also includes your messages.
Luka Inc. says it does this to protect its users, to prevent fraud, criminal activity, and any further abuse of its services.
The company is also using messaging data to improve its machine learning software, so Replica AI is getting better at sounding human — and driving Luka Inc.’s marketing strategies.
How much does Replica AI cost?
There is a free version, but to unlock all the features, replica users have to pay £61.99 for a yearly Pro subscription or £5.17 per month.
Replica Pro offers users the ability to chat with their personal AI character in multiple languages, as well as play over 100+ activities and games together.
Arguably the most important feature of the Pro package is long-term memory, which helps make the AI even more “real” for users.
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