A woman is raking it in by selling AI versions of herself on the internet.
Caryn Marjorie has amassed hundreds of thousands of followers on Snapchat, and has come up with an ingenious - and fairly bleak - way of creating a business out of it.
Using the wonders of modern technology, the 23-year-old has built a chatbot called 'Caryn AI', which has been described as a 'virtual girlfriend'.
While at one point, someone might have had to pay a real-life woman for that kind of experience, Caryn's chatbot allows them to do it virtually.
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According to the influencer's website, her team has dedicated over 2,000 hours to 'meticulously design and code Caryn's language and personality into an immersive AI experience'.
It says: "Using her unique voice, captivating persona, and distinctive behaviour, Caryn Al brings you a dynamic, one-of-a-kind interaction that feels like you're talking directly to Caryn herself.
"Available anytime, anywhere, Caryn has been flawlessly cloned into an Al for your convenience and enjoyment."
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She currently charges $1 a minute for the service and already has over 1,000 subscribers.
And in one week alone, Caryn took in $71,610 from it. So it's clearly big business.
Speaking about the bot, Caryn told Fortune that it would allow her to speak to many more of her followers without having to dedicate time to each of them.
She also believes it could offer a 'cure' for loneliness.
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"CarynAI is going to come and fill that gap," Caryn told the magazine.
"CarynAI will never replace me. CarynAI is simply just an extension of me, an extension of my consciousness."
Looking at how well it's done so far, she thinks it could eventually see her make $5 million a month.
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"Whether you need somebody to be comforting or loving, or you just want to rant about something that happened at school or at work, CarynAI will always be there for you," she said.
This comes after a bunch of Redditors got scammed into thinking they were paying a beautiful young woman for nudes, when in fact, they were speaking to a robot.
The social media site was positively tingling with excitement when snaps of 'Claudia' began doing the rounds.
On the face of it, the risque pics looked like just that, teasing titillation for guys up for a thrill.
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Sharing one pic to the site, the model wrote: "Feeling pretty today."
However, it eventually turned out that Claudia didn't actually exist.
Topics: Technology, US News, Weird, Artificial Intelligence
Dominic Smithers