Influencer’s chatbot ‘to help lonely fans’ makes her their girlfriend for 80p a minute
A SOCIAL media influencer has created an artificial intelligence (AI) app on which, for $1 (80p) a minute, she will be a client’s virtual girlfriend.
Behind the chatbot is Caryn Marjorie, 23, who has nearly two million fans on Snapchat, Instagram and Youtube.
She commissioned Carynai, a voicebased chatbot, from developer Forever Voices, which has also created Steve Jobs, Taylor Swift and Donald Trump chatbots.
The virtual Caryn Marjorie has earned $100,000 from virtual partners during the testing phase, The Washington Post reported. When the project is fully up and running, the influencer estimates it could generate $5million a month. The company analysed 2,000 hours of Youtube content by Ms Marjorie to build the chatbot.
After being swamped with messages, she believes AI will help her to stay in
‘They have a really, really strong connection with me. They actually message me every single day’
contact with followers in her Telegram group. “These fans of mine, they have a really, really strong connection with me,” Ms Marjorie told The Post.
“Because of that they actually end up messaging me every single day. I started to realise about a year ago, it’s just not humanly possible for me to reach out to all of these messages, there’s just too many, and I actually feel kind of bad that I can’t give that individual, one-on-one sort of relationship to every single person.”
Ms Marjorie said the chatbot app, which mimics her voice and mannerisms, was intended to help her fans cope with loneliness.
In one sample video, a client suggests going for a drive and a meal. The chatbot responds positively to the virtual date, even if the voice does seem devoid of emotion. Ms Marjorie said the app did not respond to sexual advances, but Fortune magazine found that it did.
The content is largely platonic, but John Meyer, the chief executive of Forever Voices, admitted there were potential ethical issues that he said the company would address.