Virtual Girlfriends, (also known as AI girlfriends) are a form of online entertainment where human users can interact, build a relationship and spend time with a fictious entity, in order to build an engaging relationship. AI Girlfriends are digital companions designed to provide users with emotional support, companionship, Sexting and personalized experiences, all through AI technology. Virtual girlfriends are a form of Virtual friend. Many platforms started promoting and selling AI entertainment products, this online trend stems from the wave of optimism about AI that followed openAI's release of GPT 3.5.[1] and recalls what was few years before was pioneered by the online application Replika.

The sudden advancement of technology has made it possible to achieve interaction standards comparable to human-like ones, making such products feasible and competitive on the AI-Sexting market. AI Girlfriends[2] are generating new business opportunities: many tech companies are emerging offering their users a way to easily craft an AI Girlfriend. Among the players in the sector the most notable are platforms like Replika, Character AI and crushon AI.

Another expression of this rise in tech level can be found in the great realism of social media Virtual influencer which are getting really famous in a public who's getting used to AI generated entities. [3]

Features

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The features offered by AI girlfriend platforms are various and many of them are industry standards. These features span from asking pictures in chat to characters, being able to send sending in chat, share you identity or personal taste with the AI, to increase the realism level of interaction[4].

The debate on AI-Sexting

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The exchange of erotic messages with AI girlfriends is a topic of heated debate because of the moral implications this may have and the potential censorship these platforms could have on the Internet, becoming on par with traditional erotic chats. OpenAI is struggling with AI Girlfriends surge on their brand new store[5]. They're using censorship to prevent the spread of NSFW contents too[6]. OpenAI policy on NSFW content and Sexting reflects in strictier censorship on new GPT models generation.[7]

On this issue, the largest AI roleplay platform, Character.ai is un-officially outspoken against the practice of AI sexting and has active censorships on its artificial intelligence model that do not allow such practices. A minority of the platform's users have expressed their desire to be able to engage in sexting conversations and made a petition to promote such practice on the platform.[8] That petition has almost reached the 150000 subscriptions target.

See also

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Virtual actor
Virtual influencer
Virtual friend
Internet relationship
Robert Kraut

References

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  1. ^ "While anticipation builds for GPT-4, OpenAI quietly releases GPT-3.5". 2 December 2022.
  2. ^ Mahdawi, Arwa (13 January 2024). "AI girlfriends are here – but there's a dark side to virtual companions". The Guardian.
  3. ^ "Virtual Influencers That Earn Their Creators Thousands of Dollars for a Single Picture". 22 January 2024.
  4. ^ "AI Girlfriend - Your Virtual Companion - Privee AI".
  5. ^ "OpenAI's GPT Store is being flooded by AI girlfriend bots despite explicit rules that prohibit them". Business Insider.
  6. ^ "AI girlfriend bots are already flooding OpenAI's GPT store". 11 January 2024.
  7. ^ "GPT-3.5-turbo-0613 refusing generations for NSFW content". 5 July 2023.
  8. ^ "NSFW Character AI Petition". 4 January 2024.