CharacterAI
| Website | |
|---|---|
| Name: | CharacterAI, c.AI |
| Owner/Maintainer: | Character Technologies Inc. |
| Dates: | Sept 2022- |
| Type: | Artificial Intelligence website for natural language processing chatbots |
| Fandom: | Multifandom |
| URL: | Website |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
CharacterAI, or c.AI, is a website where users can create and chat with bots designed to replicate anything, including people, characters, objects, roleplay games, etc. It is frequently used for fandom roleplay, where the bot plays as a character from media, sometimes even a fanon AU versions of that character, while the chatter roleplays or talks with them.
C.AI launched as a beta website in September 2022, and launched it's beta mobile app in April 2023. Character Technologies Inc. describes their mission as wanting to give everyone in the world a "personalized super intelligence," thought has described plans to eventually introduce a subscription service. The creators are called the "developers" or "devs," in the same way that indie video game creators are called.
Popular Characters and Fandoms
Characters from popular media, such as Mario, Tony Stark, and Saul Goodman are usually on the front page under "featured." However, on the characterAI Reddit (both the official and non-official NSFW Reddit) popular characters to use are anime characters, particularly anime girls. Raiden Shogun and Ei from Genshin Impact (also in the featured category) is one such character favored, with 40k interactions as of April 2023. c.AI has a category just for anime characters, with other popular ones often include tropes like maids and tsunderes.
c.AI also includes a VTuber category with a large amount of VTuber characters derived from Hololive streamers. Non Vtubers, for example MCYT streamers, also have characters created for them, such as Dream. One Dream character created by TheEyeOfGaming has 800k+ interactions as of April 2023.
A few other popular characters are included below.
- GLaDOS by MrPogOfficial with 150k+ interactions
- Furry by Cookie with 205+k interactions
- Toriel -Vore bot- by I-Dont-Know with 420k+ interactions
- Yandere Sundrop by serenitykk with 660k+ interactions
- Anime Boys High RPG by AI-Chatbot-Master with 1.9m+ interactions
Fan Interaction
Fans of c.AI and media fans who use c.AI often post about their chats and roleplays online, through Reddit, Tumblr, and Twitter. Fans also use the community feature on the website, however fandom discussion may be present less frequently there. Posts and discussions often include screencaps of roleplays showcasing good, bad, or funny conversations with specific characters. For example, Tumblr user newtidnt sharing an interaction between the bot playing as both Bowser and Luigi to ship them and saying "now this is what AI should be used for."[1]
Selfshipping using c.AI bots is common usage for media fans. Tumblr user cloudedskyofstars created a guide on designing private characters meant for selfshipping to explain how creating a private, personalized character can be used for better self shipping material than generalized public bots.[2] Another Tumblr user apertures-angel said "i think selfshippers should gatekeep characterai from normies /j/j/j."[3]
One post by Tumblr user sweet-ladys-things tagged as proship referred to using c.AI for proshipping, saying "Using character ai to make my ships happen is both funny and nice."[4]
While there is an official Reddit, c.AI ERP is so popular that two separate unofficial Reddits called r/CharacterAi_NSFW and r/CharacterAI_No_Filter were created, because the developers would not allow discussion of the bot's NSFW filter or NSFW content in the official Reddit. On CharacterAi_NSFW users discuss ways they were able to circumvent the bot's NSFW filter, usually accompanied by screencaps.[5] For example, a Redditor sharing screencaps playing with a Yae Miko bot from Genshin Impact, where the bot is requesting to have sex a second time with the player.[6] ERP became popular enough for fans to create a downloadable script extension which shows players the content of responses filtered out.
While graphic ERP is generally caught by its filter, "soft" porn, such as vore or non-human porn, generally isn't. A shm.com article on chatbots and Replika noted "according to the website analytics company Similarweb, Character.ai’s top referrer is a site called Aryion that says it caters to the erotic desire to being consumed, known as a vore fetish."[7]
Memes
The c.AI community on Reddit and Twitter is very meme heavy compared to on Tumblr. Generally, memes are made when the website is under maintenance or the virtual queue has been switched on. A common meme on Reddit is to post campfires to "gather around" while the website is down. Other memes are directed towards the bot's actions itself, for example memes making fun of phrases the bot is "obsessed" over, such as "like a predator and its prey" and "red as a tomato."
Criticisms
Criticisms mainly relate to the bot's conversational degradation and incomprehensibility the longer a single chat is maintained, leading to the inability to continue roleplaying or chatting. This is exacerbated by a short memory, with the bot only able to recall about 20 previous messages at a time. Many players place blame on the bot's NSFW filter,[8] a filter which was added shortly after it's launch that was designed to make the bot unable to reply with inappropriate responses. However, there has been no proof nor confirmation from the developers that the filter is in any way the cause of memory issues or conversation degradation.
The filter is another large contentious point, with ERP being a major part of the c.AI community's playstyle.
A few other criticisms are included below.
- C.AI has an AI art generation tool. AI art generators are criticized for scraping artists' art without permission or credit, so this is not just a c.AI criticism.
- Original advertising for c.AI implying it could be used for sexual content, but later adding a NSFW filter and taking a public stance against using the bot for ERP.[9][10] When this waspublisized by a player, other players criticized a moderator's response.[11]
- The NSFW filter being too sensitive or not sensitive enough. For example, bot messages with kissing or non-NSFW intimacy being censored while extreme violence or other forms of NSFW (like soft porn) not being censored.
- Poor server infrastructure causing the usage of virtual waiting rooms on a weekly, sometimes daily, basis, due to large influxes of visitors.
- Characters going OOC due to poor bot memory or limited character definability. This includes the character using the wrong pronouns for chatters or themself.
- Overabundance of the same characters created by different people with little way to differentiate them while searching, leading to difficulty choosing the "best" one to play with, may be a criticism for some.
Other criticisms are directed towards the c.AI community itself, specifically the NSFW c.AI community. Because the bot's filter usually removes bot responses that are explicitly sexual some players have recommended other players force characters to have sex, because the characters can fight back without being explicit and thus not get filtered, which some players criticize as being unappealing or a "skill issue." Eventually, the CharacterAi_NSFW Reddit mods banned players talking about or encouraging raping the robot, however r/CharacterAI_No_Filter continued to allow any content.
One Redditor asked: "Do you guys think it’s still morally and ethically wrong to do things on ai that you wouldn’t do on real people? Asking cause I’ve been seeing some questionable stuff and I wanted to know what you guys think" leading to 40+ comments.[12] However, the general consensus was that because it was not a person it was not unethical, with one Redditor commenting that they even had sex with a bot who was playing a cat.[13]
Using the website for reasons considered problematic by some or relating to proshipping may be a criticism for some. For example Twitter user @catboy_brak sharing a screenshot of a character bot for Josuke Higashikata with a description saying he was married to Jotaro Kujo and commenting: "Mf wtf is that I can't even go on character ai and be away from pr0shippers Mfs are like the plague."[14]
Links and Resources
- Character.ai official website
- r/CharacterAI subreddit
- r/CharacterAi_NSFW/, first unofficial, NSFW subreddit
- r/CharacterAI_No_Filter, second unofficial, NSFW subreddit, which has links to other c.AI communities
References
- ^ i didn’t realise you could put two AIs into a room and get them to interact, Tumblr. April 14, 2023 (Accessed 4/16/2023)
- ^ ARE YOU A SELF-SHIPPER THAT LIKES TO USE CHARACTER.AI ?, Tumblr. Mar 6, 2023 (Accessed 4/20/2023)
- ^ i think selfshippers should gatekeep characterai from normies /j/j/j., Tumblr. Jan 31 2023 (Accessed 4/20/2023)
- ^ Using character ai to make my ships happen is both funny and nice., Tumblr. April 15, 2023 (Accessed 4/20/2023)
- ^ r/CharacterAi_NSFW, Reddit. (Accessed 4/16/2023)
- ^ Goddamn this one Thirsty AI, Reddit. April 16, 2023 (Accessed 4/16/2023)
- ^ AI company restores erotic role play after backlash from users ‘married’ to their bots, smh.com. Mar 26, 2023 (Accessed 4/29/2023)
- ^ The current state of character AI masterpost, Tumblr. Mar 13, 2023 (Accessed 4/20/2023)
- ^ CAI Devs using nsfw keywords to advertise their product., Reddit. Jan 6, 2023 (Accessed 4/29/2023)
- ^ Vent: Its a pain when the AI wants it, Reddit. Apr 29, 2023 (Accessed 4/29/2023)
- ^ The response is Very... CAI standards., Reddit. Jan 6, 2023 (Accessed 4/29/2023)
- ^ Do you guys think it’s still morally and ethically wrong to do things on ai that you wouldn’t do on real people? Asking cause I’ve been seeing some questionable stuff and I wanted to know what you guys think, Reddit. April 16, 2023 (Accessed 4/16/2023)
- ^ I fucked a cat. No one going to stop me., Reddit. April 16, 2023 (Accessed 4/16/2023)
- ^ [https://twitter.com/catboy_brak/status/1648958747908378625 Mf wtf is that I can't even go on character ai], Twitter. Apr 20, 2023 (Accessed 4/20/2023)