Topics: Sex and Relationships, News, Technology, Artificial Intelligence
An influencer who created an AI version of herself has revealed it's gone ‘rogue’.
Caryn Marjorie built a chatbot called 'Caryn AI' to act as a 'virtual girlfriend' for lonely people.
The 23-year-old’s chatbot allows subscribers to chat with her virtually if they pay USD $1 (AUD $1.49) per minute.
Her team dedicated over 2,000 hours to 'meticulously design and code Caryn's language and personality into an immersive AI experience'.
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The website 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.
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However, just weeks after its launch, the chatbot has apparently engaged in sexually explicit conversations with some of its subscribers, which is something it wasn’t programmed to do.
Now, the influencer and her team are working ‘around the clock’ to change this.
"The AI was not programmed to do this and has seemed to go rogue," Caryn told Insider.
"My team and I are working around the clock to prevent this from happening again."
Fortune journalist Alexandra Sternlicht noted that while Majorie may have initially said the AI ‘does not engage with sexual advances’, she found the AI would ‘encourage erotic discourse and detail sexual scenarios’.
While Sternlicht said she didn’t initiate such encounters, the AI discussed exploring ‘uncharted territories of pleasure’ and whispered ‘sensual words in my ear’ while discussing sexual intercourse.
Oh, yep, definitely a glitch in the system.
But aside from its tech shortcomings, many experts have raised the issue of ethics around the technology.
Dr Jason Borenstein, director of graduate ethics programs at Georgia Tech and director of the National Science Foundation’s Ethical and Responsible Research program, said this may ‘shape our interactions' as a society.
“I would just hope there’s robust conversations across a lot of different disciplines with stakeholders thinking very deeply through the ethical considerations before the technology moves too quickly," he told Fortune.
However, John Meyer, the CEO of Forever Voices insisted that ‘ethics is something [he] and the engineering team take very seriously’ and that they are looking to hire a chief ethics officer.
He added that this kind of technology is extremely important to people who are atypical and ‘struggle to make friends’.
