Fanfiction is nothing new, but the rise of AI has the potential to take it to a whole new level.
The first indication of that was the popularity of Character.AI(opens in a new tab), an artificial intelligence experience that mimics conversations with your favorite characters, whether they’re fictional, historical, or completely new to the world. So, how does the site work and how can you start creating? We will help you further in this short guide.
What is Character.AI?
Character.AI is a site that uses a neural language model to read massive amounts of text and respond to prompts with that information. Anyone can create a character on the site and they can be fictional or based on real people, dead or alive. For example, a quick search of the website reveals that users have created characters from Billie Eilish, Ariana Grande, and Napoleon Bonaparte. You can chat with one character at a time or organize a group chat with multiple characters so that they all talk to each other and to you at the same time.
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Character.AI is free to use, but a premium offering called c.ai+ gives you benefits such as priority access to chats and faster character response times, as well as early access to new features.
How do I find and chat with a specific character?
Search Character.AI for the name of a character or the media (book, TV series, movie, etc.) they are associated with. The search results usually show the best matches based on your keywords, with the most talked about characters at the top.
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Click on the character you want to chat with and a window will open. The character will first introduce himself, then you can start chatting. When the character responds to you, you can rate their response on a scale of one to four to help the language model refine the accuracy of the character’s responses over time.
Don’t like the way the character answered your question? You can view multiple answers by clicking the arrow next to their answer. The site also encourages you to rate any answers you find offensive with one star.
And by the way, creators can never see the conversations you have with their characters.
Click the arrow (circled in green) to the right of a character’s response to see alternate responses.
Credit: Character.AI
A microphone button in the chat enables speech-to-text generation so you can speak out loud and have your words sent through the chat. Character.AI says the text-to-speech on the character side (meaning the character would talk to you) is still in the works, though character creators can currently choose a spoken voice for their character in the advanced section settings of the creation process.
How do I create a character?
Click the “create” button on the Character.AI homepage and select “create a character”. You enter the name of the character you’re creating, plus a short greeting they send at the start of each new chat. For example, a Hermione Granger character I was chatting with opened with “I’m Hermione, who am I speaking to?” and then moved on to a longer salute about being a Hufflepuff student (more on that later), her personality traits, and what she likes to do when she’s not in college.
You can also add a photo of your character and choose if you want your character to be able to generate images in their text chats. Finally, choose who can talk to your character: anyone, anyone with the link, or just you.
Re-lie-one the Hufflepuff (characters will not always be true to their source text).
Credit: Character.AI
Advanced settings are also available for tweaking, such as relevant tags and keywords, and choosing your character’s speaking voice from a long drop-down menu. You can also enter sample chats to help the model understand the character’s personality and behavior. Over time, your character will evolve based on the model’s understanding of your character’s traits, the assessment of chat rating feedback, and the analysis of chat topics.
Character.AI(opens in a new tab) provides an official guide to character creation called the Character Book(opens in a new tab)which can be accessed by clicking on this link.
What should I pay attention to when using Character.AI?
As with all AI models, Character.AI should be used with caution, and with the knowledge that it is still a work in progress. Characters may say things that are hurtful, untrue or even offensive. Moreover, the characters were created by people like you and me, not by the people who brought them to life in literature or the media. That means even the most well-known characters may not be true to their source text.
For example, the character who talked to Hermione the most on the platform confidently told me she was a Hufflepuff, even though Hermione is, famously, a Gryffindor. When I called the character on that, it doubled. “I get this response a lot, but I’m definitely into Hufflepuff,” it wrote. “I share the same values as Hufflepuff, which is loyal, dedicated and honest… My ambition is to do well at Hogwarts and make something of myself, which I think is a common trait of Hufflepuff.” You know what’s up not a Hufflepuff trait? To lie.