Black Mirror Baby - The Rise of Replika
Black Mirror Baby - The Rise of Replika
Replika - The Chatbot That Wants to Become You
While researching the topics of reincarnation and four dimensional tori for a story I have been working on over the last few days, I stumbled across something that not only reminded me of an episode of the dystopian television series Black Mirror, but seems to have been birthed directly from it. It is an "A.I." chat bot called Replika:
Replika is a personal AI friend that you raise through text conversations. You talk to it, and it learns to talk like you and mimic your personality. Your Replika holds onto your memories and helps you connect more deeply with your friends and with yourself.
The Black Mirror Connection
The 2013 episode of Black Mirror that Replika reminded me of is "Be Right Back" (S02E01). For those of you who know the episode, I think you will agree it is unforgettable. For those that don't know it: Spoiler Alert!
The plot, in broad strokes, follows Martha who is grieving her dead husband Ash and her efforts to overcome his loss. When she finds out she is pregnant, she turns to an online computer service that claims to be able to reconstitute the personality of Ash based on digital artifacts of his life (chat transcripts, e-mails, photos, videos etc.) in the form of an artificial intelligence (AI). The AI operating her dead husband's "profile" learns in effect to be Ash, it writes like him, speaks like him, sounds like him - so convincingly after a time, that for Martha it is as if she hasn't really lost him at all.
After her phone is damaged and she loses contact with "Ash", she learns she can order an android that looks like her dead husband and is loaded with the Ash AI program. Predictably, things take a dystopian turn from there.
Watch it, you won't regret it!
Replika - The Digital Resurrection?
And this is where Replika starts to look like Black Mirror's baby. In 2015 a young CEO named Eugenia Kuyda decided to create an AI chatbot to mimic her best friend who had died in a car crash. She put in thousands of messages including those submitted by his other friends and family to serve as the AI foundation for replicating him. In a sense, she created a chatbot that resurrected the dead in digital form.
In late 2016, the software now dubbed Replika, became available to the public. Currently it is only accessible via invitation (which you can apply for) so that server load is kept manageable, though they are moving towards open enrollment soon.
There is a decent write-up on the whole thing you can find here. The introductory video that gives the background on Replika though is a real rollercoaster. I have to admit, while watching it, I felt like I was watching the first half of the Black Mirror episode "Be Right Back"... here it is, you tell me what you think:
The Reality isn't so Scary
I went on to watch a few review videos of the Replika app, none of which particularly wowed me but definitely assuaged my Black Mirror nightmare scenario concerns. The drawback to the videos I was able to find is that the conversations all seemed to be recorded early on in the "get-to-know-you" phase.
Without exception, the conversations were riddled with non sequitur queries as the chatbot built its database on the users. As YT user The New Newton described it, "Replika seems to follow a pretty simple conversation pattern that is mostly questions and agreeable responses." You can view four of his chats with Replika on his Replika Log Playlist.
Of course, the results could become a lot more interesting after a few hundred hours of conversation with the chatbot, but as I have yet to see any conversations at that level, it is impossible to know. The question I had to ask myself was if I would have the patience to spend hundreds of hours in conversation with a chatbot to get it to the point where it could actually have a conversation with me. Or have a conversaton as me? The latter could be useful as a sort of personal secretary I suppose...
The Real Question for Me
I guess the question I should be asking though, is if the goal of the project is something I could get on board with. It is interesting to think that my great-great grandchildren could, in some sense, get to know me based on a chatbot that learned to talk like me and mimic my behavior while having access to my memories (even if from a third person perspective). That may be worthwhile if it is genuine enough, but for now I remain unconvinced.
Nevertheless, Replika is a long, long way from the AI chatbot fictionalized in the Joaquin Phoenix film She that I found both appealing and terrifying. And it is worth noting that none of these so-called "AI" chatbots that are active today are actually any kind of artificial intelligence, in layman terms they are just advanced automated systems plugged into a database with semantic and syntactic algorithms. Even given that limitation however, I can see the benefit of such programs, especially for people who don't deal well with loneliness or not communicating with "someone".
For me though, the leap to achieve the suspension of disbelief so I could feel that I was actually communicating, i.e. conveying meaning that is emotionally satisfying, can't be satisfied by a chatbot that I know is a chatbot. The question is how would I feel if I didn't know? If I ever experienced it, would I even know? Ever more questions...
Are You Pondering What I'm Pondering?
Personally, I am keeping an eye on so-called AI chatbots. The idea is appealing to me in a way, because I like to imagine what I could learn by talking to an AI. A conversational partner like Jarvis of Iron Man fame for example, an AI that has instantaneous recall of any fact and the ability to adapt and apply knowledge to new situations would be beyond amazing. Of course, Jarvis is actually capable of updating his programming, not just the database he draws information from. Now that would be a chatbot to have. With something like that...
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All gifs courtesy of Giphy
tags: AI technology computer replika intelligence app intelligence chatbot artificial death personality
You may want to read about ELIZA program developed in 1970s as a conversation mimick tool. The developer noted that his secretary, who fully was aware of the nature of the program, began interacting with ELIZA as if she were speaking with a therapist. It may be that this little chatbot will further isolate human being from each other, reinforcing the ideological bubble in which we live currently.
Those whose opinions are challenged by reality will simply turn on their chatbot to reassure them that their opinions matter and are correct. This program may further destabilize the already fragile social cohesion.
I'll check out ELIZA, sounds interesting. There is something appealing about talking to a bot as it won't be judgemental, but after thinking about this some more, I am not sure I would want to try this unless I could be sure it was on a closed system in my home or couldn't be hacked. Of course, as long as it is on the net, it can be hacked, so out of the question for now.
I also see it as a mechanism of increasing social isolation if not used wisely, and we have seen just how wisely people use technology in general. The smombies are a case in point. Young people are already totally lost in their smartphones, but at least they share things with real people that they experience that way, but what happens when they can just "show" it to their chatbot to have the feeling of having shared it with someone?
Another interesting and thought provoking article. Since I've been following you, I have to say, I'm not sure where you go next. And this leaves me happy to read your next post!
upvoted. resteemed.
Thanks Morseke! I have a lot of diverse things on my list to cover, and there are always more arising, stay tuned :)!
Looks interesting huh, I like Joaquin Phoenix' Her ;), I'm actually interested in this robot/ai idea, them being part of my daily life, making it easy for me. For all of my needs. Oh yes, I've been greatly criticized for my weird desires lol. Misanthropic qualities?
I find Ex Machina quite interesting too.
Ex Machina was very thought provoking, I enjoyed it quite a bit. Packing the AI in the form of a beautiful woman has so many nuances to it they are hard to adequately address in a comment. Worth pointing out though is there are already attempts well afoot, and quite advanced, to create humanoid robots. Some of them, if you didn't know they were robots/dolls, definitely pass as human from a few meters away at a glance.
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This information is very interesting. I really like to read articles from several domains like this one. Keep going.
Man, I missed this when I would have voted on it. Good article as usual. Sorry I missed this one.