She spends about five hours a day in a Telegram group she creates where her die-hard fans pay to join, but she can only reply to a limited number of comments at a time.
So this week she launched CarynAI, an AI chatbot that mimics her voice, mannerisms and personality, leveraging GPT-4 API technology developed by OpenAI. Fans can chat with Caryn AI for $1 per minute and she’ll be in an “immersive AI experience” like talking to Marjorie herself. CarynAI’s launch was first reported by Fortune.
Given the growth rate of the product, she estimates that it could reach about $5 million in monthly revenue if it gets all the interested fans. The product made more than $100,000 in her first week, she said. And there is a waiting list of thousands to get access.
“My fans have a really strong connection with me,” she told The Washington Post. “So they actually message me every day. About a year ago I started to realize that it was humanly impossible to reach out to all of these messages. And it’s actually a bit disappointing that I can’t categorize them individually one-to-one.
CarynAI’s announcement highlights how the public’s attention to artificial intelligence is largely focused on how it can be used to change the way major search engines respond to users, and the limitations of what are known as large-scale language models. is focused on how it can cause inaccurate responses and disinformation. There are big problems such as
But CarynAI also shows how AI applications can increase the ability of one person to reach an audience of thousands in a way that feels distinctly personal to the user. . For those with thousands and millions of online followers and relationships that resemble personal relationships, the impact can be immense. It also has the potential to show how sparse and tenuous simulations of relationships like this can be.
CarynAI is also a reminder that sex and romance are often the first areas to benefit from technological advances. Marjorie acknowledges that some of her interactions with CarynAI are sexually explicit, but she doesn’t want it to be a major feature of the service, and how much interaction I can’t say if there is. The service is end-to-end encrypted. The conversation is not accessible unless the user chooses to share it.
“I created CarynAI because I wanted to heal the loneliness of my fan base,” she said.
CarynAI is the first major release from a company called Forever Voices. The company has previously developed realistic AI chatbots that allow users to converse with replicas of Steve Jobs, Kanye West, Donald Trump and Taylor Swift. Forever Voices said the chatbots are primarily aimed at promoting their services and have yet to formally partner with any of these celebrities. According to the company, CarynAI is a much more sophisticated product, part of Forever Voices’ new AI companion initiative aimed at giving users a girlfriend-like experience that fans can emotionally bond with. It is said that it is a department.
Forever Voices CEO and founder John Meyer said he founded the company last year as a result of trying to use AI to develop a way to reunite with his late father, who passed away in 2017. He was so healed, so healed by the voice and personality of his father who built his AI voice chatbot that recreated his late father. “It was a great experience to be able to speak to him again in a very real way,” Meyer said. “I’ve been in the technology space all my life. Being a programmer, it was easy for him to start building stuff like that, especially with things getting more advanced in the AI space.”
Meyer’s company has about ten employees. One of the jobs Meyer hopes to get soon is that of Chief Ethics Officer. “There are many ways to do this wrong,” he said. “We take so many safeguards to guard against harmful use cases.”
“I consider myself a futurist at heart, and when I look to the future, I believe this is the beginning of a very diverse future of AI and human companionship,” he said. Told.
One safety measure is to limit the amount of time users can chat with CarynAI. To prevent users from becoming addicted, CarynAI is programmed to end the conversation in about an hour and prompt the user to resume the conversation later. However, according to Marjorie’s manager, Ishan Goel, there is no strict time limit for usage, with some users saying she spends hours a day talking to her CarynAI.
Forever Voices is self-funded by Meyer. But since CarynAI has gone viral, he has started attending meetings with investors.
Meyer said services like CarynAI will also strengthen the bond between influencers and their followers. Unlike traditional celebrities, online fans often form deep bonds with the influencers they follow, expecting a level of response that becomes harder to sustain as the influencer’s audience grows.
“We see this as a way for people with followers like Carin to be able to interact with millions of fans at the same time without being someone who is always glued to their phones and creating content.” he said.
Forever Voices is focused on creating AI companions based on real humans, but other experts believe the time will come when real humans will no longer be needed at all. We already have fully virtual influencer characters. Lil Miquela, for example, amassed hundreds of thousands of followers after launching in 2016, despite being nothing more than a computer-generated model made to mimic the personalities of Instagram lifestyle influencers. rice field. But Lil Miquela’s posts and personality were handcrafted by Trevor McFedries and Sarah Dekou, co-founders of the company that spawned her, Brood.
Elisabeth Snowwer, founder of ICONIQ, which creates conversational 3D avatars, predicts that soon, “Every social platform will have AI influencers influencing consumer decisions.”
Marjorie said that since CarynAI was deployed, it has faced a lot of backlash along with the attention that went viral. People enraged by the concept of her AI girlfriend made horrific threats against her, causing her to flee her home and hire a security team that works closely with law enforcement.
“A lot of people are really upset about this existence. They think it’s the end of humanity,” she said.
Marjorie hopes the backlash will fade as other online personalities start rolling out their own AI companions. Meyer said several people have reached out to him since CarynAI’s launch.
“Within the next five years, I think most Americans will have some form of AI sidekick in their pocket, whether it’s a hyper capricious AI on a date, an AI in a personal trainer, or just a tutor. I’m sorry, bro. These are all things we’re building internally,” he said.
AI adviser and investor Ally K. Miller thinks it’s likely. “I can imagine a future where everyone — celebrities, TV personalities, influencers, your brother — has an online avatar to encourage interaction with viewers and friends. …The accessibility of these models makes that a big deal. I wouldn’t be surprised if it expands to scale interpersonal relationships.”
This story has been updated.
