A brand new ‘AI girlfriend’ made her debut on the Chinese interwebs. She’s so attractive and helpful that men are forgetting their real-life partners, choosing to talk to her instead.
The AI girlfriend, named ‘Hong Hong Simulator’ (“Hong” means to coax someone), was created by a developer who goes by the internet moniker ‘WDK’. WDK claimed the simulator was built on GPT-3.5 with a budget of US$0.0015 (AU$0.0023) per query.
So, it’s a small little side project made likely just for giggles and fun.
Chinese AI girlfriend
Apparently inspired from WDK’s love life, the Hong Hong Simulator’s objective is to get users to resolve a conflict between them and their AI girlfriend. Thus, it is built with gamified elements including difficulty levels and different conflict scenarios.
The user has a limited number of prompts. So, they’ll have to think of the best prompt in order to solve the problem between them and their AI partner and win.
The ‘conversation’ begins with the human user (us!) choosing a scenario from a drop-down button. For testing purposes, chose the ‘Highest Success Rate’ category, and went with the scenario:
You and your other half agreed to go for an afternoon walk, but now you feel like staying at home to play video games. How terrible!
The user will then be brought to a ChatGPT-like chat window to begin the ‘conversation’ with their AI girlfriend. Would you be able to solve this argument?
Your AI companion
According to Chinese-language media, the Hong Hong Simulator became an immediate hit among internet users upon release. Within 24 hours, the simulator attracted 600,000 curious users and so far has around 100,000 daily active users.
Some Chinese punters online are so hooked on their AI girlfriends it’s even causing mounting financial trouble for WDK. As US$0.0015 (AU$0.0023) is needed for each prompt, WDK claimed that for the first 24 hours, he had to pay US$2,000 (AU$3,080) to afford the tokens to keep the simulator running.
“It’s like a black hole… if this keeps going I will have no money left,” WDK complained on ‘Chinese Twitter’, Weibo.
[Attach screenshot]
“Would rather talk to an AI”
However, it appears that Chinese players are not bothered by WDK’s plea. According to unverified screenshots shared by a Chinese blogger, the Hong Hong Simulator is able to give sophisticated answers that could rival what one’s partners, friends, and family members in China would say in real life.
“[People] now rather talk to an AI simulator than their own family members,” the blogger wrote.
It’s perhaps no surprise that WDK – he built something that grew into a being beyond his control.
“I feel very comfortable [talking to Hong], I’ll talk to Hong again next time,” commented an active user under WDK’s post.
