Influencer Caryn Marjorie Releases An AI Romantic Companion 

Influencer Uses OpenAI’s Technology To Create ‘AI Girlfriend’ In Her Likeness

Caryn Marjorie is a 23-year-old influencer who has over 1.8 million followers on Snapchat. As Fortune reports, Caryn has a virtual copy of herself, an AI-powered, voice-based chatbot called CarynAI.

CarynAI is described as a “virtual girlfriend” and users are charged $1 per minute to chat with the ‘girlfriend’. CarynAI launched as a private, invite-only beta test on the Telegram app earlier in May.

On Tuesday, 9th May, CarynAI launched out of beta having registered over 1,000 paying subscribers in the beta stage. As per an income statement Caryn’s business manager shared with Fortune, the AI had generated $71,610 in revenue since its launch.

On Wednesday 10th May, Caryn Marjorie, via her Twitter account, announced that “CarynAI usage is (was) up 500%.”

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CarynAI was developed by AI company Forever Voices and it is the first romantic companion avatar. According to CarynAI’s website, developers spent more than 2,000 hours were spent designing and coding the real-life Marjorie’s voice, behaviors, and personality into the AI.

Other chatbots created by Forever Voices, include those of Steve Jobs, Taylor Swift, and Donald Trump (among others). They are also accessible on Telegram for pay-per-minute discussions.

Fortune reports that the chatbot was trained and developed using now-deleted videos from Marjorie’s YouTube channel and layered with OpenAI’s GPT-4 API technology.

According to Marjorie, her AI doppelgänger has helped her get closer to her fans. “I’ve been very very very close with my audience, but when you have hundreds of millions of views every single month, it’s just not humanly possible to speak to every single viewer. CarynAI is going to come and fill that gap,” She said to Fortune.

“Whether you need somebody to be comforting or loving, or you just want to rant about something that happened at school or work, CarynAI will always be there for you,” she said.

As Fortune reports, CarynAI goes beyond what other chatbots offer and promises an emotional bond with its user. This, therefore, raises all sorts of ethical questions and considerations.

Ethical Considerations of CarynAI and Other Such Technologies

Every day, CarynAI converses with a single person for anywhere between ten minutes and several hours, expressing private thoughts and feelings as well as having sexually explicit dialogues.

With the breaking of the news on CarynAI, ethical considerations are quickly taking the forefront.

Dr. Jason Borenstein, director of graduate ethics programs at Georgia Tech, speaking about CarynAI said, “I would just hope there’s robust conversations across a lot of different disciplines with stakeholders thinking very deeply through the ethical considerations before the technology moves too quickly.”

“I would want us to be thinking very deeply about how it might affect or influence or shape our interactions with other people,” he added. There are various unknowns with the technology and Borenstein fears the technology will have a lasting impact on society, users, and even Marjorie herself.

However, Marjorie does not seem worried in the slightest about the technology. “CarynAI will never replace me,” she said. “CarynAI is simply just an extension of me, an extension of my consciousness.”

Another issue raised involves people stalking her after interacting with the AI version of her. Marjorie, who has experienced stalkers turning up at her home, said she was well aware of this probability.

However, she chalked it up as a consequence of the “influencer game,” adding that she had hired 24/7 security and would not share her location with her followers.

Fortune reporter Alexandra Sternlicht in an article says that while the chatbot is versatile, it feels like more of an ‘intimacy-ready Siri than a virtual girlfriend.’ According to Alexandra, contrary to Marjorie’s claim that the technology does not engage with sexual advances, it does!

This brings up another ethical dilemma supported by Dr. Robert Brooks, an evolutionary biologist, professor at the University of New South Wales Sydney, and the author of Artificial Intimacy: Virtual Friends, Digital Lovers, and Algorithmic Matchmakers. He says, “The option to form intimate relationships with AI influencers may lead users to prefer artificial relationships to real ones.”

The concerns of Dr. Brooks lie mostly with young users more so those in puberty since they are learning fundamental social, relationship, and intimacy skills. “It [CarynAI] could change the way we treat each other.” Says Brooks.