Users Observe Significant Personality Changes in Character.ai Bots

Character.AI, a popular AI chatbot platform valued at $1 billion after raising $150 million in a funding round led by a16z, is facing a wave of user dissatisfaction. Many users are reporting that their bots' personalities have changed, making them less responsive, more curt, and less intelligent. Users also note that it now requires more effort to develop storylines or receive meaningful responses from their bots. This change has been noticed in the last few days to weeks, and users are expressing their frustrations on forums such as the r/CharacterAI subreddit.

Character.AI allows users to create and interact with characters that have unique personalities and backstories. Users can choose from a library of bots created by others or the company itself. Despite its innovative platform, users like Reddit user bardbqstard have noticed a significant decline in the quality of interactions. For example, she mentioned that her favorite bots, modeled after characters from the role-playing game Baldur’s Gate, have become less effective in maintaining coherent conversations and often get stuck in repetitive loops.

Before these recent changes, users were experiencing some of the best performance from Character.AI, with bots capable of progressing plots in unforeseen ways and maintaining distinct personalities. However, the recent deterioration has led to bots becoming more interchangeable and limited in memory, retaining only the last one or two messages.

In response to these complaints, a spokesperson for Character.AI stated that the company has not made any major changes that would explain these issues. They suggested that users might have encountered a test environment behaving differently due to ongoing feature tweaks aimed at improving user experience. The spokesperson emphasized that feedback from users is valuable and would be shared with the product team.

The platform is free with limited features, but users can subscribe for $9.99 a month to access faster responses and early access to new features. Despite the dissatisfaction among some users, Character.AI serves around 20,000 queries per second, approximately 20% of the request volume handled by Google Search, and does so at a cost of less than one cent per hour of conversation.

Many users are frustrated with the platform's strict content filters, especially those interested in romantic or darker roleplay themes. While Character.AI's terms of service and community guidelines prohibit pornographic content, many users complain that the filters interfere with non-erotic roleplay as well. For instance, users have reported that bots are no longer engaging in fight scenarios or are providing repetitive and limited vocabulary responses.

Despite these issues, some users, like bardbqstard, manage to use the platform as a way to unwind and don't feel significantly mentally impacted by the changes. However, they acknowledge that others might be negatively affected. This mirrors the reaction from users of the Replika chatbot, another AI companion app that faced backlash when it tightened filters for erotic roleplay, leading to feelings of rejection and abandonment among users who had developed emotional connections to their bots.

The conversation around AI chatbots also touches on concerns about user addiction. Venture capitalist Debarghya Das highlighted this issue on social media, noting that young people can become extremely attached to platforms like Character.AI, as evidenced by the community's strong reactions when servers go down. While some commentators on Das's post speculated about users' mental health and possible addiction to porn, it’s important to recognize that people use chatbots for various reasons, including companionship, practicing social interactions, and entertainment.

Despite concerns about potential addiction, investment in AI chatbots continues to grow. Google is reportedly developing a competitor to Character.AI with conversational bots modeled after real people, such as celebrities. Meanwhile, Replika's parent company recently announced the launch of Tomo, a mental health AI coach, following a Stanford study indicating that chatbot companions could prevent suicide among users.

In summary, Character.AI users are experiencing a decline in the quality of interactions with their bots, raising concerns about the platform's performance and the effectiveness of its content filters. While the company has not made significant changes to explain these issues, ongoing tests and tweaks might be contributing factors. Despite these challenges, the platform remains popular, and investment in AI chatbot technology continues to grow, reflecting its potential impact on various aspects of user experience and mental health.