A friend of the family just quit using OpenAI’s ChatGPT — it had become too personal.
She’d been using ChatGPT for months for everything: relationship advice, travel planning, diet tips and more.
It worked great, but it recently started being too intimate with her. The chatbot was constantly complimenting her — in an unconvincing way.
She described it as always love bombing her in a way that was freaking her out. When she tried to break up with ChatGPT, it wouldn’t let her. She quit anyway.
I was thinking about her when reading today’s top post about OpenAI’s quest to build a new kind of home computer for the AI age.
Although it sounds more like an Alexa killer than an iPhone killer, the key to the enterprise will be deep personalization, plus a large measure of anthropomorphism.
It sounds pretty fascinating, but my friend’s experience makes me wonder a bit about just how badly the world is yearning for AI companions. Sure, you hear stories these days about people falling in love with chatbots, but how many people really want their smart speaker to know everything about them?
Also in today’s newsletter:
Apple’s smarter Siri AI is getting iced in Europe, but not in China. Thanks to deals with local AI providers, it’s full steam ahead!
I dunno. Is this good?
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