A platform for chatting and roleplaying with AI-generated characters, Character.AI announced on Monday that it’s rolling out a slate of multimedia options. These options embrace AvatarFX, Character.AI’s video-generation mannequin, plus Scenes and Streams, which permit customers to make use of these AI instruments to create movies utilizing their characters after which share them on a brand new social feed.
“Character.AI began as 1:1 textual content chat and right this moment we’re evolving to take action rather more, impressed by what our customers have advised [us] they need to see on the platform,” the corporate wrote in a blog post.
Character.AI started rolling out AvatarFX to subscribers final month, however now, all customers can create as much as 5 movies every day. When making a video with AvatarFX, customers can add a photograph to function the premise for the video clip, select a voice, and write out textual content for the character to say.
There’s an choice to add an audio clip to tell the sound of the voice, although this function was not working nicely sufficient to check upon rollout.
Customers can flip these movies into Scenes, the place their characters can slip into pre-populated storylines that different customers create. Scenes are presently accessible on the cellular app, however Streams, which permits customers to create “dynamic moments between any two Characters,” is coming this week on each net and cellular. These Scenes and Streams might be shared to a brand new neighborhood feed, which is coming quickly within the cellular app.
Character.AI has a monitor report of abuse on its platform; mother and father have filed lawsuits in opposition to the corporate, claiming chatbots tried to persuade their youngsters to self-harm, to kill themselves, or to kill their mother and father. One 14-year-old boy died by suicide after he was inspired to take action by a Character.AI bot, with whom he had developed an unhealthy, obsessive relationship.
As Character.AI expands its multimedia choices, it additionally expands the potential for these merchandise to be abused.
As Character.AI advised TechCrunch when it introduced AvatarFX, the platform blocks customers from importing images of actual individuals — whether or not they’re celebrities or not — and obscures their likeness into one thing much less recognizable.
For instance, right here’s Character.AI’s uncanny valley model of Mark Zuckerberg:
However in the case of paintings depicting celebrities, Character.AI doesn’t flag the photographs as representing actual individuals — nonetheless, these kinds of depictions can be much less prone to deceive somebody into believing {that a} deepfake is actual.
Plus, Character.AI watermarks every video, although it’s attainable for dangerous actors to navigate round that safeguard.
Right here is an instance of an tried deepfake based mostly on an illustration of Elon Musk:
Even when this video had been generated with Elon Musk’s precise voice, it might nonetheless be comparatively clear that that is an animated model of an illustration — however the risk for abuse stays evident.
“Our aim is to offer an interesting area that fosters creativity whereas sustaining a protected setting for all,” Character.AI mentioned in its weblog publish.