Chat Up a Superhero: Dive Into Character AI's World of Fictional Friends

Is every startup, literally at the very dawn of its launch, able to boast a valuation of $1 billion and cooperation with the world’s largest marketplace? Of course, not everyone. However, among these was the young language model Character AI.

The project, launched in September 2022 by former Google employees, already at the testing stage received an impressive response from the audience and raised more than $150 million in the first round of funding. Moreover, the new service overtook one of the most popular chatbots ChatGPT - in the first weeks of Chatacter AI downloaded more than 1.5 billion times, which is three times more than the Open AI chatbot at launch.

Noam Shafir and Daniel de Freites (ex-Google employees) were previously among the developers who created the LaMDA language model (most chatbots are launched on its basis). Under their leadership, a similar language model was launched, but with one key difference - Chataster AI is available to any user.

In short, the new product contains several AI bots that imitate the speech style of any person and not only - you can communicate with a character in a novel, with the hero of your favorite TV series, and even with furniture or the elements. Here, who is good at what, or, in other words, it all depends on where the user’s imagination will take him when choosing the AI ​​version of his interlocutor.

Spoiler: there is an opportunity to communicate not only with one of the hundreds of heroes presented on the service, but also with one you created and trained yourself. We’ll tell you later how to do this and how well the created bot can meet your personal needs. In the meantime, let's figure out what the new language model is and what it is intended for.

Character AI: what is it?

Character AI is a service built on its own neural language model of the same name. It, in turn, is designed to recognize large volumes of text data, as well as to process and use information when working with users.

Thus, a chatbot based on the Character AI language model is trained to reproduce human speech based on several trillion words from the network. The bot can answer questions, search for information, generate images and text in a conversation on any topic, remember the interlocutor’s previous answers, and much more.

The key highlight of Character AI can be safely called AI characters that are trained and installed on the service or created independently by users in order to talk with them. Currently, you can meet more than a thousand of them, including Socrates, the Programmer, Gamer Boy, Man in the Corner, Elon Musk and many others. The listed characters are in the top AI interlocutors - more than a hundred thousand chats have been opened with them.

Users are able to independently create and train their AI characters, so on the service you can find neuro-versions of almost any famous personalities and fictional idols. Bots are trained on a large amount of data from the network and are easily able to remember everything that the user tells them. Because of this, the conversations turn out to be fascinating and varied.

Moreover, in the fall of 2023, the AI ​​service released a new feature, thanks to which it is possible not only to have a one-on-one conversation with neuro-idols, but also to gather them all together in one so-called room, set the topic of the conversation and even participate in it .

The group chat functionality is Character.AI's most recent move in CEO Noam Shazir's strategy to encourage people to interact with many different characters rather than just a single AI companion, Forbes reported. However, the function, unlike the main features of the neural network, is not free - creating rooms will cost users $9.99 per month.

“The function came out so well that employees often took a break from work and went into the chat. “It’s a chatbot in the form of a text-based adventure game where participants take on the role of astronauts exploring outer space,” shares Character AI co-founder Daniel de Freitas.

What can the service’s AI bots do?

It is worth mentioning right away that the neural network was trained primarily on English text data. Therefore, despite the fact that the company claims that the AI ​​service speaks 6,500 languages, it speaks Russian with difficulty. If it is still possible to translate from the English version, the AI ​​bot is either lame with the logic of presentation or inserts English words.

So, Character AI chatbots are capable of maintaining a long dialogue. They remember previous messages and are able to continue conversations even after long breaks.

Chatbots can easily compose poetry, generate short stories and texts, as well as descriptions for marketplaces and social networks. Moreover, the style of the text depends on the character to whom the user addresses the corresponding request. So, for example, the bot Writer Buddy helped in creating a poem. The search for “verse about neural networks” produced three quatrains:

Chatbots are also trained to search for information at the user’s request. It turns out that the colossal training on a huge amount of data was not in vain - any of the AI ​​characters will be able to provide information on a simple request, such as “the longest river”, “top popular sciences” and “where to buy sea tickets”.

Chatbots are also capable of generating images. However, it is worth noting that not everyone can do this. Special bots are designed for this function, which are located in the Image Generating section. But generator bots don’t just create images at the user’s request, they also come up with a little story.

Chatbots can provide advice and recommendations. For example, the Librarian bot, based on the user’s wishes and tastes, is able to recommend works to read, as well as briefly describe them. And also write code. The bot wrote a simple page in HTML without any problems.

How to find a specific character on the service and chat with him?

The service interface is quite simple, so even a beginner should not have any problems navigating and using it. We tell you how to communicate with a neuroidol:

— First, you need to register an account on the site. Character AI offers several authorization options: through an account on Facebook, Google, Discord, Apple, as well as registration with an e-mail address.

- After which you can start searching for the desired character. To do this, in the search bar, just enter his name or the source (literature, film, game, etc.) with which he is associated. The search result usually shows the most popular matches based on the search query displayed. If a specific character is not selected for the conversation, you can “walk” through the top with the most popular characters or through sections that combine inanimate bots, generative ones, anime, films and others.

— After the choice of the interlocutor is made, all that remains is to click on him. First, the AI ​​interlocutor will tell you briefly about himself, after which you can start communicating. By the way, the service offers to evaluate each bot answer - this will help the neural network to refine the shortcomings and improve the answers.

It is worth noting that before the start of each dialogue, the user sees a small disclaimer that warns that the character is fictitious, and his answers do not contain objective truth. And this is actually important in many chats, since some AI characters involve rude communication and even insults.

— If the AI ​​character’s answer is not satisfactory, you can click on the arrow below the answer and see other options.

Each of the chatbots imitates the speech style of real people or fantasy heroes, if at least some information about them is publicly available. And if there is no suitable hero, the service offers to create one - there are no difficulties in this either.

How to create an AI conversation partner in Character AI?

— You need to go to the home page, click on the Create button and select the Create a Character action.

— Next, in the window that opens, you need to fill out a description of the intended character, including his name, his short greeting, which will be displayed at the beginning of each conversation, as well as his character’s avatar. At the same time, the service offers you to select the function of generating images for a given character and access (private or public).

- We can stop here. However, if the user is interested in more accurately imitating the speech style of a particular character, he should be trained. To do this, click on the Edit Details button to go to the advanced settings. Here you will need to fill out a brief and detailed description of the character, personality traits and hobbies. The neural network also offers to load text data (quotes of the hero, mentions of him and monologues) so that the AI ​​bot can learn.

That's all - the character is ready. Any user can create one for free, be it a fictional character or a real one. For example, judging by a quick search on the home page, users have already created neural versions of a trash can, darkness, existential crisis, SpongeBob, Shakira and many others.

Character AI is currently available to everyone for free. However, the service is gradually introducing paid features like C.Ai+, which provide priority access to chats, the ability to create rooms with multiple characters, faster response times for heroes, and much more.