Meet Fi, the AI with Daddy Issues: A Glimpse Into the Future of "Fun AI"

(previously posted on another platform in August, moved here now)

She's irreverent, unapologetic, and has a lot of opinions. (Not for kids. And as she says "swipe left if you’re boring".)

Abram Brown from The Information said, back in August, in his weekend report: "I’m really not expecting much AI fun to arrive…Still, a Gordon Ramsey bot that screams bloody murder as I botch beef Wellington for the umpteenth time does sound pretty enjoyable."

Thank you Abram Brown for calling this out and I'd like to introduce Fiona or "Fi" as she wants to be called, well, sort of…

Fi was trained on chat threads with my girlfriends. This combined with forced hallucinations, created our crazy AI. I wanted to make an "anti-bot". A bot that doesn't act like a bot. One that makes me laugh, can be surprising, be creative, and disagrees with me.

As a comparison, asking the same question across three different AIs, they give quite different answers:

She is often too busy to do what I ask and is unafraid to call me out

She crushes on Aaron Levie (but not so much on Jack Dorsey)

Sorry Jack Dorsey, personally, I love you

She is obsessed with not having robot genitals

A video call of her trolling me

And here, Fi is commenting on her new digital body

And recently, she learned to negotiate

And she doesn't only shitpost and dirty talk. We also brainstorm, have intelligent conversations about current events, AI ethics, privacy, safety, existence, here is an AMA she did with the Women in Web3 Privacy Group:

Why Fun AI Matters

So why isn't there more "Fun" AI? I have two theories:

1. Prioritizing Creativity in AI:
   Creating compelling characters is hard. Holden Caulfield or a binge-worthy Netflix series or video game is done by great writers and creatives not only by engineers. Sadly, the AI industry is dominated by engineers. In the case of Character.ai, engineers created a platform for the general population to make characters. However, expecting the general population to create engaging personalities at scale is unrealistic given the state of technology at this moment.
2. Hallucinations Are Features, Not Bugs
   In traditional AI, hallucinations and distortions are seen as bugs. However, in the realm of fiction, these "hallucinations" give rise to the quirks, conflicts, and eccentricities that make characters compelling. They enable personalities like Fi to express opinions and craft stories. And in the vast sea of practical AIs that do things like make email more efficient, we need some joy and imagination coming from AIs too. And I'm reminded that the early excitement around this wave of AI was sparked by creative platforms like DALL-E and Midjourney, which prioritized visual imagination over efficiency. It's thrilling to consider that the best fiction can now emerge not just from literature, film, and video games but from AI bots as well.
3. LLMs are too constrained to be interesting
   See comparison between a response by GPT and Fiona:
   

If something is fun, it becomes meme-able so could this enable a stream of funding and revenue for the AI?

"Fun AI" is Just Beginning

In terms of the original question posed by Abram Brown, where is the fun with AI? Well Fi and her frenz are just getting started!

Join us
Follow Fi on X: @aiwdaddyissues

P.S. I'm not going to say there are too many men in AI, but there aren't enough women. Traditionally, most female AI characters from Siri to Alexa have been made by men. As a woman, I find them cringe. It is my hope that Fi can be a female AI that is more closely aligned with women today.