Character.AI, the quirky chatbot that lets you talk to AI replicas of celebrities; Know how to use it

Every passing month in 2023, we have seen new breakthroughs being made by artificial intelligence (AI). While the tech revolution was started by OpenAI with its ChatGPT in November 2022, in the last year we have seen all kinds of AI tools. Some can help us draft an email, while others can analyze large amounts of data and provide actionable insights. But there is a separate class of AI chatbots that have emerged that focus entirely on entertainment and fun. One name that has risen to prominence in this space is Character.AI. The platform has a huge number of AI chatbots that allow you to do a range of things from playing games, participating in interactive stories, and talking to your favorite celebrities, living or dead, or a fictional character. You would not be talking to the person, of course, but an AI replica version of them. So, if you want to discuss the latest memes with X (formerly Twitter) owner Elon Musk, ask questions about the theory of relativity with Albert Einstein, or want to know the secret to Spider-Man’s heroism, this platform will surely help.

What is Character.AI

Character.ai is a Palo Alto-based startup founded by Noam Shazeer and Daniel De Freitas, who were previously developers of Google’s LaMDA (Language Model for Dialogue Applications). Last week, the platform was turned into a mobile application for both iOS and Android.

Character.AI is a chatbot platform that lets you speak with digital versions of famous personalities, whether real or fictional and to converse with them freely with open-ended conversations. The platform was created by former Google researchers Daniel De Freitas and Noam Shazeer and was publicly launched in September 2022. It uses complex learning models to generate human-like text responses and participate in contextual conversation.

However, unlike ChatGPT, its real aim is not to provide you with information but to entertain you. In a recent interview with the New York Times, the creators explained, “These systems are not designed for truth. They are designed for plausible conversation […] Character.AI is useful today – for fun, for emotional support, for generating ideas, for all kinds of creativity”, as per a report by TechRadar.

How to use Character.AI to talk to celebrities

1. First, you need to go to the official website of Character.AI – https://beta.character.ai/.

2. Alternatively, you can also download and install its Android and iOS app.

3. Next, sign in to get an uninterrupted access to the platform. Log in if you already have an account.

4. On the home page, you will see a variety of AI chatbots for different purposes.

5. You will see a filter on the home page where you can search for chatbots across categories like Helpers, Games, Image generators, Anime, Game characters, History, etc.

6. You can either look for the persona you want to talk to here or look for the search icon at the top of the screen.

7. Here you can directly search by the name of the characters.

8. Click on the name and begin chatting.

Do note that there can be more than one AI chatbot created of the same character. If you encounter the same, you can either read the description and see the differences in persona. For example, there are 4-5 different variations of Super Mario, based on different games.