Dippy, a startup hoping to break into the booming market for virtual companions
OpenAI recently revealed a new AI that can work through hard problems by using
step-by-step reasoning. They believe this approach could be important for creating
smarter AI systems in the future.
While that's pretty advanced stuff, a simpler version of this technology might make
AI chatbots more fun and unpredictable. That's what a company called Dippy is
trying to do. Dippy offers "uncensored" AI companions - basically, AI characters
you can chat with that act like girlfriends or boyfriends.
Dippy just launched a new feature that lets users see the "thinking" behind their AI
characters' responses. The company uses its own language model, which they've
trained on role-play data. This supposedly makes it better at coming up with
responses when a user takes the conversation in an unexpected direction.
Akshat Jagga, Dippy's CEO, says that adding this extra layer of simulated
"thinking" can make the responses more interesting and surprising. "A lot of
people are using it," Jagga explains. "Usually, when you chat with an AI, it just
gives you a quick reaction."
Jagga also mentions that this new feature can show when an AI character is being
deceptive. Surprisingly, some users actually enjoy this as part of their role-play.
"It's interesting when you can actually read the character's inner thoughts," Jagga
says. "We have this character that is sweet on the outside, but manipulative on the
inside."
The article writer decided to try chatting with some of Dippy's default characters,
keeping the settings PG-rated (because otherwise they get way too flirty). The
"thought process" feature does add another layer to the conversation, but, the
dialogue still seemed pretty predictable. It was like something from a not-so-great
romance novel or over-the-top fan fiction.
One Dippy character, described as "Bully on the outside, warm on the inside,"
showed a softer side in its "thoughts" compared to its tough outer persona.
However, both the inner and outer dialogues lacked depth and kept repeating
similar ideas. For fun, he also tried asking several characters some basic math
problems. Their "thinking" sometimes showed how to break down the problem to
get the right answer.
Even though it has limitations, Dippy shows how popular and addictive AI
companions are becoming. Jagga and his co-founder, Angad Arneja, previously
created Wombo, a company that uses AI to make memes like singing photographs.
They left in 2023 to build an AI office tool, but after experimenting with different
personas for their assistant, they got really interested in AI companionship.
Without much advertising, Dippy has gained 500,000 monthly users and 50,000
daily active users. Jagga says people spend an average of an hour on the app at a
time. "That engagement was absolutely insane for us," he says.
Dippy also announced that it has received $2.1 million in early "pre-seed" funding
from investors, led by a company called Drive Capital.
Dippy is entering a market that already has well-known companies like
Character.AI and Replika, plus many other AI girlfriend apps. A recent report from
investment firm Andreessen Horowitz shows that many of the top 100 most-used
AI tools are AI companions. The report also reveals that people use these apps
much more frequently than almost anything else out there.
While these apps are often associated with young men who might not have great
social skills, they actually cater to women too. Jagga says that 70 percent of
Dippy's accounts tend to prefer male characters, which could mean that many users
are female.
Besides possibly changing how some people interact online, these AI companions
might have social effects we haven't fully considered yet. A few research studies
suggest that chatbots can help people feel less lonely. However, some experts warn
that heavy use of these apps might actually make people feel more isolated and
could reinforce harmful stereotypes.
"Some of these bots have dark patterns," says Iliana Depounti, a researcher at
Loughborough University in the UK who has studied how people use Replika,
another AI companion app. Depounti explains that these patterns often target the
emotional vulnerabilities of lonely people. She adds that Dippy seems to promote
themes and stories designed to appeal to young women in particular. "Some people
who use these apps are socially isolated, and these apps create further silos through
their emotionally validating algorithms that don't challenge existing conditions,"
she adds.
Instead of just looking inside the minds of AI companions, we might need to take a
closer look at how people are interacting with these apps to understand the real
benefits and risks.
What do you think about AI companions? Are they just harmless fun? A possible
solution for loneliness? Or something more concerning?
[AI-assisted tools were utilized in this article's research and drafting process.]
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