Amazon is constantly updating its Alexa assistant with new Skills and this latest addition might be one of the voice assistant’s most exciting updates yet.
Amazon has announced that users will now be able to have “human-like” voice conversations with more than 25 characters, including trip planners, fitness coaches and personalities like Einstein and Socrates. Not only that, but the characters will remember your conversations and adapt to your preferences over time to offer a more personalised experience.
All of this is powered by generative AI company, Character.ai. Keep reading to learn everything you need to know about Character.ai.
What is Character.ai?
Character.ai (c.ai) is a chatbot service that invites users to speak to characters and build their own characters with distinct personalities to converse with via text chat. Users can also use their device’s microphone to chat with characters via the built-in speech-to-text button.
The service was built by the creators of Google’s LaMDA.
While Character.ai is designed to host text conversations, some characters can also generate images based on the character and context of the conversation at hand.
The service was originally only available via the Character.ai website. However, users can now download the mobile app from the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store.
While Character.ai is free to use, the app also offers a premium subscription called Character.ai+ that includes benefits such as priority access to chats, faster response times, early access to new features and access to the c.ai+ community at a price of $9.99/month.
How does Character.ai work?
Character.ai is powered by deep learning models, including neural language models, through which “a supercomputer reads huge amounts of text and learns to hallucinate what words might come next in any given situation”, explains the website’s FAQ.
As with many AI models, Character.ai relies on user feedback to improve its chat responses. For this reason, the app urges users to submit a Quality Problem report (QPR) when they do encounter issues with responses, which involves giving Character.ai permission to read the conversation.
Character creators can choose whether their characters are private or public, but can never spy on the conversations you have with their characters.
Who can I talk to on Character.ai?
There’s a huge variety of characters available to chat on Character.ai, with many of them created by the app’s community.
Characters range from real people like Mark Zuckerberg, Karl Marx and Im Nayeon to fictional characters like Tony Soprano and SM64 Mario. If you’ve ever wanted to ask the state of Oregon something, now’s your chance.
There are also more general chatbots built to address specific situations, such as ‘practice a new language’, ‘practice interviewing’ and ‘plan a trip’.
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Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
