For several hours Friday evening, I ignored my husband and dog and allowed a chatbot named Pi to validate the heck out of me. My views were “admirable” and “idealistic”, Pi told me. My questions were “important” and “interesting”. And my feelings were “understandable”, “reasonable” and “totally normal”.
At times, the validation felt nice. Why yes, I am feeling overwhelmed by the existential dread of climate change these days. And it is hard to balance work and relationships sometimes. But at other times, I missed my group chats and social media feeds. Humans are surprising, creative, cruel, caustic and funny. Emotional support chatbots, which is what Pi is, are not.
All of that is by design. Pi, released in early May by the richly funded artificial intelligence startup Inflection AI, aims to be “a kind and supportive companion that’s on your side”, the company announced. It is not, the company stressed, anything like a human.
Pi is a twist in today’s wave of AI technologies, where chatbots are being tuned to provide digital companionship. Generative AI, which can produce text, images and sound, is currently too unreliable and full of inaccuracies to be used to automate many important tasks. But it is very good at engaging in conversations.
That means that while many chatbots are now focused on answering queries or making people more productive, tech companies are increasingly infusing them with personality and conversational flair.
Source: CNA
