Character AI chatbot: how to use, who to talk to, is there Russian language support?

The Character AI neural network specializes in creating diverse characters that imitate famous personalities and heroes – for example, Albert Einstein or Mario. How it works and whether it can compete with ChatGPT is in the Kommersant article.

What is Character AI, how to use it and is it possible to communicate in Russian?

Character AI appeared in test mode in September 2022. Former Google employees who previously worked on the LaMDA language model were responsible for its development. Like LaMDA, Character AI specializes in creating chatbots that can have a casual conversation with a person on any topic. The main feature of Character AI was the ability to imitate the communication features and manner of speech of famous people.

The developers immediately warn: everything the chatbot says is fiction, but communication can indeed resemble a believable conversation. When communicating with a dating bot, for example, I was able to choose a gift that my other half might really like.

To start a conversation, you need to select a suitable chatbot from the list or through a search (there are several hundred of them in total), or you can create and train your own bot. When the dialog box opens, the selected character will start a conversation; you can support him or choose your own conversation topic, however some characters will suggest returning to the originally programmed topics for discussion. You can write about six messages to the bot, after which the user will be asked to register to continue the conversation: For now it’s free and doesn’t require a phone number, just email is enough.

You can try to speak Russian with the chatbot, however Russian language is not officially supported. The returned phrases will be obtained using an automatic translator and may not be worded correctly.

What characters are there and how popular are they?

On the main page of the neural network, the developers offer to get acquainted with Socrates, Albert Einstein, William Shakespeare, Gigachade, as well as with chatbots on psychology, dating and script writing. AI versions available Elon Musk, Mario, Hermione Granger, Michael Jackson, Sherlock Holmes, Fyodor Dostoevsky and many others. Each has its own peculiarity: Elon Musk will constantly remind you that he is the richest and most successful, and Mario will offer to complete a text quest for the game.

The popularity of the characters also varies greatly: from several million to several hundred million, Various anime characters are very popular. There is no ranking on the site, so it is impossible to find out the most popular character, and There are different variations of the same characters from different authors.

If desired you can create your own chatbot and train it, To do this, the character needs to be given a name, an avatar and a greeting message. The choice of name is important, because when creating a celebrity, the neural network will begin to imitate the style of her speech at the initial stage. In the absence of a welcome message, it will be up to the user how the conversation with the chatbot goes. You will also need to fill out fields with a short and long description, where you need to indicate the character and background from the point of view of the fictional character, as well as enter categories – for example, “technology” or “animals”. You can allow the character to create neural network pictures, and also select voice acting in eight languages ​​(Russian is not included). Also You can train the bot using ready-made examples of dialogues or directly during communication.

What Character AI can do and how it differs from ChatGPT

Character AI’s functionality is extensive, but not unlimited. It is designed to carry on a conversation and come up with coherent answers, but it can also write any text, including poetry or blog posts, scripts.

Each bot can search the Internet, as well as give advice and generate ideas, for example, what to give a girl on March 8th or where to go on vacation. With enough input, recommendations can be very accurate. Some chatbots are capable of creating pictures, but it is unknown which neural network is used for this.

Also the bot can be used as a personal assistant, and in this it will be a bit like ChatGPT, however Character AI has a few limitations. The neural network cannot write code or translate text, or retell materials. In general, its functionality is slightly lower than that of ChatGPT.