Caryn Marjorie, a 23-year-old Snapchat influencer, has created a voice-based, AI-powered chatbot of herself, which can be the “virtual girlfriend” of subscribers who pay $1 per minute to chat with it. Marjorie says her AI chatbot, CarynAI, could earn $5 million per month.
The online influencer has more than 1.8 million followers on Snapchat. Meanwhile, CarynAI, which was launched as a beta test earlier this month, already has more than 1,000 paying subscribers, according to a report by Fortune.
CarynAI’s beta launch reportedly generated $71,610 in revenue in about one week, with its subscribers being almost entirely men.
More than 2,000 hours were spent designing and coding the real-life Marjorie’s voice and personality into an “immersive AI experience,” which CarynAI’s website says is available “anytime, anywhere,” and feels as if “you’re talking directly to Caryn herself.”
“Using her unique, captivating persona, and distinctive behavior, Caryn AI brings you a dynamic, one-of-a-kind interaction that feels like you’re talking directly to Caryn herself,” the website states. “Available anytime, anywhere, Caryn has been flawlessly cloned into an AI for your convenience and enjoyment,” the site adds.
CarynAI was created with the help of since-deleted videos from Marjorie’s YouTube channel and layered with OpenAI’s GPT-4 API technology, Fortune reported.
“CarynAI will never replace me,” Marjorie told the magazine. “CarynAI is simply just an extension of me, an extension of my consciousness.”
The Snapchat influencer added that “CarynAI is going to come and fill that gap,” and claimed it might be able to “cure” loneliness.
Marjorie added that she believes CarynAI could eventually earn $5 million a month, given that 20,000 of her 1.8 million Snapchat followers are signing up for the service.
“Whether you need somebody to be comforting or loving, or you just want to rant about something that happened at school or at work, CarynAI will always be there for you,” she told the magazine, suggesting that her AI chatbot could make subscribers feel as though they have a real-life companion.
Fortune reporter Alexandra Sternlicht, however, described CarynAI as something that feels more like an “intimacy-ready Siri” rather than a virtual girlfriend.
Sternlicht also noted that CarynAI offers “erotic discourse” and detailed sexual scenarios, as well as recipes, commentary on the news, words of support.
Vice testing CarynAI, found that the chatbot “only wants to talk about sex.”
AI Caryn quickly devolved into being sexually explicit by the next message, when it said “I have a confession to make. I’ve been thinking about you all day and how I just want to feel your body close to mine. The thought of us sweating it out together and then exploring each other in ways we’ve never done before just has me absolutely weak at the knees. What do you think?”
Even when the prompt I sent was something innocuous like “Can we go skiing in the alps together?” AI Caryn replied, “Of course we can go skiing in the alps together. I love the thrill of skiing in the snow capped mountains, feeling the cold air in my face and then cozying up together in front of a warm fireplace. But let me tell you, after a long day of exhausting skiing, I can’t promise I won’t jump your bones the moment we reach the comfort of our cabin.”
Read more at Fortune here.
You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Facebook and Twitter at @ARmastrangelo, and on Instagram.
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