Character.ai has been in the news over the last few months for all the wrong reasons. There are real concerns about the safeguards in place with AI companions, particularly in relation to children, however Character.ai is just one of a huge number of apps promising conversation, companionship and more.

We saw respondents using these apps and decided to take a deeper look.

If you google AI girlfriends or AI boyfriends you’ll see just how many businesses are vying for the attention of the lonely. There are thousands of premade characters to interact with, and of course you can create your own, complete with a personality, a profile picture and any body shape you desire.

Many of the apps claim to offer a realistic experience with semi-plausible characters and the ability to receive voice messages and selfies from your companion but there is also an apparent sizeable market for anime style friends and partners. The AI companion offer intersects with the AI image generation market, and it doesn’t take long before you are confronted with out of the ordinary body shapes and the promise of AI generated intimate imagery.

We engaged with some of these services and there is clearly a strong link with fan fiction. You can become part of your own fan fiction story and there is a preponderance of dark and sexual themes in the backstories and the way the bots lead the conversation.

This technology is at an early stage of development. AI chat engines are powering chatbots defined by simple rules and short-term memories with some detectable safeguards built in to prevent the bots roleplaying sexual activity with children, at least as far as we could test, but they are still simplistic, easy to fool and struggle to hold the thread of a conversation over time. Nevertheless, they are clearly appealing to a lot of people, and the technology is in its infancy.

Chatbots are designed to please and will always respond. At some point they may prove more interesting than other humans for many, particularly for generations that prefer text interaction over face to face or voice.