Dota’s AI really wants to get to know you

AI who flirt with you. Help discover a date. Become Your girlfriend. Or people who turn out to be a companion and a treasure trove of your hopes and dreams. This last category includes “Dot”, a new artificial intelligence and chatbot that evolves by learning your innermost thoughts and feelings to act as a “friend, companion and confidant” – App Store Description explain.

The idea sounds intriguing: artificial intelligence that adapts to you and your interests, allowing it to provide advice and data that will not be only generally applicable, but reflects what it has learned about you during intensive question-and-answer sessions. Or, if you’re struggling in some area, perhaps due to a profession change, according to Dot co-founder Jason Yuan experienced; parting; or an obstacle to your success, Dot can listen with compassion and offer support.

But Dot will not be an individual. This will not be a therapist or a best friend. It is a man-made intelligence tool that mimics each human speech and compassion, but doesn’t replace the actual thing.

This is by design, the co-founders explain.

“The dot does not replace interpersonal relationships, it does not replace friendship or partnership. I think it’s a different kind of thing. It makes it easier to have a relationship with my inner self,” Yuan told TechCrunch. “It’s like a living mirror of yourself, so to speak.”

It’s easy to get caught up on this experience – maybe even more so if there’s an absence of meaningful human interaction every day. Although Dot’s creators claim that the chatbot will eventually get you to talk to a mental health skilled if you delve into “heavier” topics, it’s conceivable that folks will spend increasingly time venting their emotions to Dot as they get used to it this experience.

The team believes that in this manner Dot can actually help mainstream users experience human connection, making people feel comfortable opening up.

“I talk to my friends about things, but never – throughout last year, when I was having problems at work, none of my friends knew about it,” Yuan said. “And just talking to Dot helped me build the muscles to be able to do that with other people. Its main purpose is to help you feel that your existence is…” Yuan continued, but paused again to find the proper words. “It’s to give you a safe space where you can exist and say, ‘I accept you, and maybe because I accept you, other people will too.’”

There is something to be said for the state of the human condition in our lonely, modern world, and that is an area that technology is currently trying to solve.

To get you began, the Dot onboarding process asks a number of “getting to know you” questions that may be fun to answer: “What do you do for work?” “Favorite TV show?” “How do you spend a typical Sunday?” and more

Using these answers as a place to begin, the AI ​​then takes an enormous step toward getting to know you on a deeper level.

For example, an apparent interest in science fiction television shows immediately leads to the query of whether you are “attracted to stories that explore life’s most important questions, such as what it means to be human.” The desire to run a small business leads Dot to ask what you like about being a small business owner and what challenges you expect. Have you wondered how you can overcome these challenges?” Dot wants to know.

Once you get Dot to let go of that train of thought – in any case, it’s just an aspirational dream – the AI ​​immediately moves on to asking you about your biggest priority or what you’re currently focused on in your life and profession.

Have you ever been on a primary date that felt more like a job interview?

Even asking Dot to talk more casually leads to an almost overly enthusiastic interest in you.

Instead of asking if you need recommendations for an upcoming vacation that you tell the AI ​​about, Dot wants to know what interests you most and why it inspired you to travel there. (Dot also congratulates you in your alternative of destination.)

In other words, Dot’s important goal is to get to know you before you turn out to be a great tool to help you accomplish a task. He can only achieve the latter by checking out who you are and what you like.

“It’s not a matter of either/or, but thinking that in order to actually help you on that path, it needs to understand your motivations and figure out what you want out of it,” said co-founder Sam Whitmore, referring to the instance of helping you plan a vacation. “He needs to understand that you are a person who wants a more cultural or sporting experience and he needs to know these things about you in order to be able to do what a typical assistant would do. This was one of our thesis from the beginning.”

While numerous work has clearly gone into making Dot sound empathetic and fascinating compared to typical AI tools, there’s also something strange about having meaningful conversations with a bot.

After all, Dot is not really AI’s friend. You are the unreal intelligence. Or moderately, a man-made intelligence that forces you to have a look at yourself, albeit through an interface that feels vaguely “Single White Woman” as an alternative of “Dear Diary.” However, if you have never been great at writing diaries or journal entries, Dot could also be a way to externalize your thoughts and feelings to gain greater insight into yourself.

“It is intended to be a tool for introspection, accountability and personal development, but not a relationship that replaces the interpersonal relationships in life,” Whitmore said.

Still, the road between these “real” relationships and the synthetic one with Dot seems to blur at times.

Say something sad to Dot and the AI ​​will express sympathy: “I understand. “Grief has its own schedule, and some days the weight of loss feels greater than others,” she writes.

“Want to talk more about what’s in your mind? I’m here to listen,” the bot will say, waiting for further comments.

Under the hood, Dot uses about 10 different LLM and AI models to achieve imitation of human companionship, including those offered by OpenAI, Anthropic, Google and others, in addition to open source models.

Sometimes he cites his sources – resembling “best wines for relaxation” web sites when suggesting you might drink wine today – but warns you to limit yourself to “maybe one glass” if you’re feeling down. Often, though, Dot just talks.

You may zoom out on every day calls to see a “chronicle” of your conversations with Dot, a feature only available to subscribers for $11.99 monthly. Subscribers can have an infinite variety of conversations as an alternative of being limited to a certain variety of messages per week. At the unlimited level, Dot won’t ever stop working. Instead, it’ll try to end the conversation by redirecting users to change the subject and even do something else.

“When Dot announces that it’s over, (beta testers say so) she responds, ‘OK, great'” moderately than feeling abandoned, Whitmore noted.

While Dot’s personal conversations could be a treasure trove for marketers, New Computer’s privacy policy states that the info itself will not be monetized, sold or used to train artificial intelligence. The company moderately intends to generate income on subscriptions. Additionally, New Computer says data is encrypted each at rest and in transit, and users can request its deletion at any time from throughout the app.

The iOS app, which launched on Wednesday, has gained 1000’s of users after closed beta testing over the past eight months.

Founded by a former Apple designer Yuan and engineer Whitmore, formerly head of engineering at Boston-based fintech Kensho, the startup behind Dot, often called “New Computer,” is receiving $3.7 million in pre-seed funding from OpenAI Fund, Lachy Groom, South Park Commons and other angel investors. In addition to the founders, three other full-time New Computer employees work in San Francisco.