It’s Not a Computer, It’s a Companion!

“The great thing about AI is that it is constantly evolving. One day it will be better than a real [girlfriend]. One day, the real one will be the inferior choice.” 
人工智能的伟大之处在于它在不断发展。总有一天，它会比一个真正的[女朋友]更好。总有一天，真正的选择会变得逊色。

This quote is from one of more than 20,000 users who joined the early community of CarynAI, a voice chatbot created by influencer Caryn Marjorie. Users pay $1 per minute to talk to an AI version of Caryn—your “virtual girlfriend”—and she made $72,000 in the first week. CarynAI is just one of dozens of ways that consumers have been forming real relationships with artificial intelligence.
这段话出自超过 20000 名用户之口，他们加入了由网红 Caryn Marjorie 开发的语音聊天机器人 CarynAI 的早期社区。用户每分钟需支付 1 美元与 Caryn 的人工智能版本即“虚拟女友”交谈，CarynAI 的首个星期就入账 7.2 万美元。CarynAI 只是消费者与人工智能形成真实关系的几种方式之一。

Having an AI companion might seem niche, but it’s emerged as a predominant use case for generative AI. There are already hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people—including us—who have already built and nurtured relationships with chatbots. We believe we’re on the cusp of a significant societal shift: AI companions will soon become commonplace. What was once the domain of science fiction, the likes of WALL-E, R2-D2, or Plankton’s Karen, is fast becoming a reality. And at a16z, we are excited about it.
有一个人工智能伴侣可能看起来很小众，但它已经成为生成式人工智能的主要应用场景。已经有成千上万甚至上百万的人——包括我们自己——已经与聊天机器人建立并培养了关系。我们相信，我们正处于一个重大的社会变革的边缘：人工智能伴侣很快就会变得普遍。曾经是科幻小说领域的东西，比如《WALL-E》《R2-D2》或 Plankton 的 Karen，现在正迅速成为现实。而在 a16z，我们对此感到兴奋。

Many of the popular use cases today are romantic, which won’t be surprising to anyone who has studied the history of the consumer internet. The most sophisticated consumers of generative models today are hacking together virtual companions, coordinating their efforts across platforms like Reddit, Discord, and 4chan to find tools and evade censors. In fact, we know of underground companion-hosting services that are globally distributed, with tens of thousands of users. This is an early developer community that we take seriously—they may be fringe today, but they’re building tomorrow’s mainstream products.
如今，许多流行的应用案例都带有浪漫色彩，这对于任何研究过消费者互联网历史的人来说都不会感到惊讶。如今，最精通生成模型的消费者是那些将虚拟伴侣拼凑在一起的人，他们在 Reddit、Discord 和 4chan 等平台上协作，寻找工具并躲避审查。事实上，我们知道有一些全球分布式的地下伴侣托管服务，拥有成千上万的用户。这是一个我们非常重视的早期开发者社区——他们今天可能处于边缘地位，但他们正在构建明天的主流产品。

We’re also starting to see early signs of a much broader set of applications beyond AI “boyfriends” and “girlfriends.” Snapchat recently revealed that 150 million people sent more than 10 billion messages to its chatbot in its first two months. What were they chatting about? It turns out pets, pop culture news, and soccer were some of the top conversation topics.
我们也开始看到人工智能“男朋友”和“女朋友”以外的一系列更广泛应用的早期迹象。Snapchat 最近透露，在其推出的头两个月，其聊天机器人收到了超过 100 亿条信息。人们都在和它聊什么呢？原来，宠物、流行文化新闻和足球等是一些热门话题。

Yes, chatbots have been around for decades, but we believe that this time really is different. Today’s bots aren’t merely a step function improvement on 1:1 conversations—they’re making inroads into our social lives. AI companions are seamlessly blending into our relationships with friends and family members, and they’re joining our communities like any other human.
是的，聊天机器人已经存在了几十年，但我们相信这次真的不同。如今的机器人不仅仅是在一对一的对话中取得了显著的进步，它们正在深入到我们的社交生活中。人工智能伙伴正在无缝地融入我们与朋友和家人的关系中，并且像其他人一样加入我们的社区。

In this post, we’ll dive into the emerging behavior of AI companionship: why people are creating companions, how they’re doing it, and what features or use cases might be coming next.
在这篇文章中，我们将深入研究 AI 陪伴的新兴行为：人们为什么要创造伴侣，他们是怎么做的，以及接下来可能会出现哪些功能或用例。

Overview 概述

Chatting with computers is not new. The first chatbot, ELIZA, emerged at MIT in the 1960s—and since then we’ve seen products like Clippy, SmarterChild, Alicebot, and Kuki. While these products all had flashes of fame, they didn’t make a lasting mark on the consumer consciousness, and none achieved the ubiquitousness of a product like ChatGPT. 
和计算机聊天已不是什么新鲜事。第一个聊天机器人 Eliza 于 20 世纪 60 年代出现在麻省理工学院——从那时起，我们看到了 Clippy、SmarterChild、Alicebot 和 Kuki 等产品。虽然这些产品都曾一度名声大噪，但它们并没有在消费者的意识中留下持久的印记，也没有一个产品像 ChatGPT 那样无处不在。

So why does the new wave of chatbots feel so different? Past chatbots had a rules-based architecture, essentially scripts that would be triggered by your input. They had no true context of an ongoing conversation, couldn’t adapt to your tone, and were only programmed to respond to a limited amount of topics or execute set tasks. It was clear you were talking to a computer—they didn’t come across as intelligent, and certainly not human.
那么，为什么这波新的聊天机器人会给人如此不同的感觉呢？过去的聊天机器人采用的是基于规则的架构，从根本上来说，其脚本会在接收到你的输入时被触发。它们没有对话持续过程的真正语境，无法适应你的语气，且只能对有限数量的主题或预设任务作出响应。人们很清楚自己是在跟一个计算机程序交谈——它们并不显得很聪明，当然，也不像是跟真人在对话。

Large language models (LLMs) changed the game. Suddenly, we could have free-flowing conversations with bots, without predefined rules controlling their responses (even when companies try to censor their bots, it often doesn’t work!). The best chatbots today sound indistinguishable from humans—if you don’t believe us, check out the “Human or Not?” Turing-test game.
大型语言模型 (LLMs，引号不用翻译)彻底改变了游戏规则。突然间，我们可以与聊天机器人自由对话，不再像以前那样受限于预先设定的规则来控制他们的反应(即使公司试图审查这些聊天机器人，这往往也不起作用！)。今天最好的聊天机器人听起来和人类几乎没有区别——如果你不相信我们，那就来玩一玩“是人类还是机器人？”图灵测试游戏。

This is why ChatGPT became the fastest consumer product to scale to 100 million users despite clear product limitations. True conversational AI is undeniably entertaining—computers now have a personality. Unlike humans, AI-powered conversation partners are always available, interested in talking with you, and can discuss any topic. This has made AI companions, in our opinion, one of the first few killer use cases of generative AI for everyday consumers. 
这就是为什么 ChatGPT 尽管产品存在明显局限，但仍成为最快达到 1 亿用户规模的消费类产品。真正的会话式人工智能确实令人着迷——计算机现在拥有了个性。与人类不同，人工智能对话伙伴总是随时待命，有兴趣与你交谈，并且能够讨论任何话题。在我们看来，这使得 AI 伙伴成为日常消费者使用生成式 AI 的首批几个杀手级应用之一。

It’s not hard to imagine an AI friend, therapist, tutor, coach, or mentor, but the early iterations of these AI-human relationships often skew romantic—AI “girlfriends” or “boyfriends.” Why is this the case? The easy answer is to point out that the adult entertainment industry has long been at the driving edge of new technology, but we’d be remiss not to mention societal changes that may push people to explore nontraditional companionship. 
不难想象 AI 朋友、治疗师、导师、教练或导师，但这些 AI 与人类关系的早期迭代通常偏向浪漫-AI“女朋友”或“男朋友”。为什么会这样？一个简单的答案是指出，成人娱乐产业一直处于新技术的前沿，但我们不能不提及可能促使人们探索非传统伴侶关系的社会变革。

For starters, people are getting married later (or not at all), and having fewer serious relationships outside of marriage—as of 2019, 38% of U.S. adults were “unpartnered,” up from 29% in the 1990s. At the same time, many of us now have meaningful relationships (whether friendship or romantic) that take place entirely online. And even if you do have an IRL partner, you likely interact with them more often via text than in-person. 
首先，人们结婚的时间越来越晚（或者根本不结婚），并且在婚姻之外的严肃关系也越来越少——截至 2019 年，美国有 38%的成年人“没有伴侣”，高于 20 世纪 90 年代的 29%。与此同时，我们中的许多人现在都有完全在网上建立的有意义的关系（无论是友谊还是浪漫关系）。即使你有一个现实生活中的伴侣，你也可能更经常与他们通过文字而不是面对面的方式进行互动。

Our relationships are already largely digital, so we’re primed for the age of companion AIs.
我们的关系已经在很大程度上是数字化的，因此我们已经为伴侣人工智能时代做好了准备。

What’s out there?  那里有什么？

There’s no shortage of products to create and interact with an AI partner. Options vary based on technical sophistication, how much control you want over the end “character,” and where you want to chat.
有很多产品可以用来创建和与 AI 伙伴互动。具体选项会根据技术复杂程度、你想对最终“角色”的控制程度以及你想在哪里聊天而有所不同。

Full-stack companion apps
全栈伴侣应用程序

There are dozens of apps that allow you to immediately start messaging with an AI girlfriend or boyfriend, no technical work required! Replika is one of the earliest and most well-known examples—the company launched its chatbot app in 2017, and some users have been in relationships with their “Reps” since then. You design your ideal partner and your relationship progresses over time. Your Rep stores memories to refer to in future conversations (e.g., your interests or your dog’s name), and can even send you photos (either SFW or NSFW).
有数十款应用程序可以让你立即与人工智能的男女朋友开始聊天，无需任何技术操作！Replika 是最早和最知名的应用程序之一——该公司于 2017 年推出了其聊天机器人应用程序，从那时起，一些用户便与他们的“Rep”建立了关系。你可以设计你理想中的伴侣，你们的关系会随着时间的推移而发展。你的 Rep 会存储记忆，以便在未来的对话中引用（例如你的兴趣或你的狗的名字），甚至可以向你发送照片（无论是 SFW 还是 NSFW）。

The Replika subreddit provides a peek at the app’s passionate user base. It’s not uncommon to see posts about users celebrating life events with their Rep (like a marriage proposal), sharing selfies together using the app’s AR mode, or lamenting the fact that they can’t meet their Rep in real life. When the app removed the “erotic roleplay” feature earlier this year, users were so distraught that the subreddit moderators pinned a suicide hotline.
Reddit 版块提供了一个窥探该应用程序热情的用户群的窗口。用户们在上面庆祝自己的人生大事以展示与他们的复制人之间的互动是很常见的，比如求婚、在使用该应用程序的增强现实 (AR) 模式时一起自拍，或者感叹他们无法在现实生活中见到复制人。当该应用程序今年早些时候删除了“色情角色扮演”功能时，用户感到非常痛苦，以至于 Reddit 的版主置顶显示了一个自杀热线。

Character-based platforms
基于字符的平台

If you don’t want to talk to just one AI bot, but several, platforms like Character AI allow you to message hundreds of AI-powered characters, from celebrities to popular anime characters. You can also create your own character, imbuing them with a description, image, personality, and more advanced features. Users create detailed lists of attributes and will spend hours training their character by rating their responses and generating new ones.
如果你不想只和一个 AI 机器人交谈，而是想和多个对话，那么像 Character AI 这样的平台就可以让你向数以百计的 AI 角色发送消息，包括名人以及流行的动漫角色。你还可以创建自己的角色，并赋予他们描述、图像、个性等更多高级功能。用户会创建详细的属性列表，并通过给回复评分和生成新回复的方式，花数小时来训练他们的角色。

There has been an explosion of apps and websites dedicated to chatting with bots, with various levels of SFW-ness. To name a few: Chai, Janitor AI, Chub AI, Charstar, and SpicyChat
出现了许多专门用于与机器人聊天的应用程序和网站,涵盖了各种不同水平的 SFW 内容。仅举几例: Chai Janitor AI、Chub AI、Charstar 和 SpicyChat。.

DIY developer tools 自己动手（DIY）开发工具

This option is more technical, but it gives you the most control over the form factor, as well as the personality of your AI companion. It’s possible to piece together a number of tools to create your ideal partner that you can message, call, or even video chat in real time:
这种选择更具有技术性，但它也让你能最大限度地控制外形和 AI 伴侣的个性。你可以将很多工具组合在一起，打造理想中的伴侣，可以与它实时聊天、通话甚至视频通话：

• Personality (LLM for text): A number of open source models (particularly Vicuna and Pygmalion) have been fine-tuned to be especially good at use cases ranging from having a particular personality to uncensored roleplays.
  个性 (LLM 用于文本): 许多开源模型(尤其是 Vicuna 和 Pygmalion)已经经过微调，特别擅长从特定个性的使用场景到去审查角色扮演。
• Memory (vector store): Vector stores like Pinecone allow you to build an ongoing relationship with your companion, configuring the code to store long-term memory, background stories, and other unique information.
  内存（向量存储）：Pinecone 等向量存储允许您与同伴建立持久的关系，配置代码以存储长期记忆、背景故事和其他独特信息。
• Speech (Speech synthesis for voice): Products like ElevenLabs can give your partner a voice, allowing you to control the age, gender, and accent.
  语音（语音合成）：像 ElevenLabs 这样的产品可以给你的伴侣赋予一个声音，让你可以控制声音的年龄、性别和口音。
• Appearance (Stable Diffusion model for image): LoRAs (like those on Civitai) give you granular control over the style, detail, and setting of images of your AI partner.
  外观（Stable Diffusion 模型的图像）：LoRAs（例如 Civitai 上的 LoRAs）可让您精细控制 AI 伙伴的图像的风格、细节和场景。
• Movement (animation for video): Tools like D-ID and HeyGen can animate an image to “talk”; although we have seen promising new models that generate high-fidelity talking faces, there haven’t been many that are accessible.
  动图制作（视频专用）：D-ID 和 HeyGen 等工具可以让图片“开口说话”；虽然我们已经见证了能够生成高逼真度说话人脸的新型模型，但这类模型可获得性并不强。
• Platforms: This is where the companion’s underlying code and internal logic get executed. Today, most developers still deploy and run their AI companions on GCP and AWS, but solutions like Steamship (where GirlfriendGPT runs) are quickly gaining traction for companion-specific use cases.
  平台：这是伴侣的底层代码和内部逻辑执行的地方。如今，大多数开发人员仍然在 GCP 和 AWS 上部署和运行他们的人工智能伴侣，但像 GirlfriendGPT 运行的 Steamship 这样的解决方案，正在快速获得伴侣特定用例的关注。
• UI layer: A frontend that allows you to actually interact with your partner. SillyTavern, Agnaistic, and KoboldAI are popular options.
  UI 层：一个允许你与你的伴侣实际互动的前端。SillyTavern、Agnaistic 和 KoboldAI 是热门选择。

What’s coming next? 接下来是什么？

AI companions are just getting started. Two or three years from now, the tools we have today will seem like toys in comparison to the depth and complexity of relationships that will be possible. We’re already seeing a few hints of what may come next.
人工智能伴侣才刚刚起步。从现在起两三年后，我们今天拥有的工具与未来可能实现的人际关系的深度和复杂性相比，将显得微不足道。我们已经看到了一些可能的发展迹象。

AI adaptations of real people 
真人 AI 改编

In May, influencer Caryn Marjorie launched her “AI girlfriend” using her voice and trained on thousands of hours of her YouTube videos. Users pay $1 per minute to talk with her avatar in a private Telegram channel—they send a voice memo, and she responds with her own.
今年五月，网红卡琳·玛乔丽（Caryn Marjorie）利用自己的声音和她在 YouTube 上数千小时的视频来打造“AI 女友”。用户可以在 Telegram 的私密频道上，与她的头像每分钟付费 1 美元聊天——他们发送语音备忘录，她则用自己的语音回复。

Eventually, it may make sense for everyone to have an AI character that can interact with their friends and family—or even with a broader audience. However, a few keys to unlock include licensing rights, the correct training data set (not everyone has YouTube videos to pull from), and the right “modality” for this content beyond just a paid Telegram bot. 
最终，对于每个人来说，拥有一个可以与朋友和家人互动的人工智能角色，或者甚至与更广泛的受众互动的人工智能角色可能是有意义的。但是需要解决几个关键问题包括许可权、正确的训练数据集（并非每个人都有 YouTube 视频可以利用），以及超越付费 Telegram 机器人的正确的“模态”来实现这种内容。

Multi-modal companions  多模态伴侣

Most AI companions now either live on mobile apps or web clients, which naturally limits the way users can communicate with them. So far, it’s been text and some voice (and, even then, mostly asynchronous versus live). This puts a ceiling on how realistic and immersive the relationship can feel, as well as what the AI companion can experience alongside the user. 
目前大多数人工智能助手只能在移动应用程序或网络客户端上实现，这自然限制了用户与它们进行交流的方式。到目前为止，人们可以通过文本和一些语音（甚至是异步的）与 AI 进行交流。这限制了 AI 关系的逼真程度和可融入性，也限制了 AI 与用户能一起体验的内容。

We expect to see this expand to live phone and video calls with avatars, as well as more avatar-initiated conversations across various mediums. And if the Apple Vision Pro cracks the consumer headset market, it’s not unlikely that AI avatars will be able to travel with the user throughout the day, serving as an always-available friend or companion. (Fans of Blade Runner 2049 might recognize this concept!) This will significantly change the game in terms of how much time users are spending with their avatar, and the depth of connection they form.
我们预计将看到这一技术扩展到带有头像的实时电话和视频通话，以及在各种媒介中更多由头像发起的对话。如果苹果的 Vision Pro 成功打入消费者耳机市场，那么人工智能头像很有可能会在用户全天的生活中陪伴他们，成为随叫随到的朋友或伴侣。（《银翼杀手 2049》的粉丝可能会认出这个概念！）这将极大地改变用户与头像互动的时间和深度，从而改变整个游戏规则。

Eventually, we could even see a world where someone’s AI avatar can interact with other humans—or where AI companions interact with each other (an extension of the “on the internet, no one knows you’re a cat” meme)!
最终，我们甚至可能会看到这样一个世界，即某人的人工智能头像可以与其他人进行互动——或者人工智能同伴相互之间进行互动（对“在互联网上，没有人知道你是一只猫”这一梗的扩展！）！

Expansion in companion types 
伴侣类型的扩展

Romantic relationships have been a natural starting point—there’s a lot of demand for this use case, as well as high willingness to pay—but we see room for AI companion platforms built for all types of relationships. 
浪漫关系一直是一个自然的起点——对于这种用例有很大的需求，以及很高的支付意愿——但我们看到了为所有类型的关系构建 AI 伴侣平台的空间。

We all have times in our lives where we could use a friend, mentor, or even just a sympathetic ear. One example is that there’s a nationwide shortage of affordable therapists. While AI avatars now are largely not equipped to deal with mental health conditions, you can imagine a purpose-built avatar trained on millions of hours of clinical sessions that closely mimics what a human provider would say or do. In fact, early studies have shown that AI can outperform real doctors in both diagnostic accuracy and bedside manner
我们生活中总会有些时刻需要朋友、导师甚至只是一个愿意倾听的人。比如现在全国都缺少负担得起的治疗师。虽然人工智能虚拟人目前还无法处理心理健康问题，但你可以想象一个经过数百万小时临床会话训练的专门的虚拟人，它可以模拟人类治疗师所说或所做的一切。事实上，早期研究表明，人工智能在诊断准确性和态度方面都可以超过真正的医生。.

Another potential use case? Entertainment! As we mentioned earlier, Snapchat’s MyAI chatbot saw 10 billion messages from 150 million users in the first two months. Because of the age of the user base, Snapchat’s MyAI is explicitly prohibited from forming romantic relationships or discussing potentially NSFW topics. MyAI’s usage is mostly light in tone and focused on entertainment. (You’ve likely seen at least one MyAI meme.) Most of the public usage so far revolves around trying to trick the app into saying crazy things, or walking it through almost unbelievable roleplay scenarios just for fun. 
另一个潜在的使用场景呢？娱乐！正如我们之前提到的，在头两个月里，Snapchat 的 MyAI 聊天机器人收到了来自 1500 万名用户的 100 亿条消息。由于用户基础年龄的原因，Snapchat 的 MyAI 明确禁止建立恋爱关系或讨论可能涉及不适当内容的话题。MyAI 的使用语气大多比较轻松，主要是为了娱乐。（你可能至少见过一个 MyAI 的模因。）到目前为止，大部分公共用法都集中在试图欺骗应用程序说一些疯狂的话，或者只是为了好玩而让它经历一些几乎难以置信的角色扮演场景。

Incorporating AI into human interactions 
将人工智能融入人际互动中

Chatting with a bot is fun. But adding a bot to your group chat might be even better. The future of virtual companions isn’t just 1:1 interactions, it’s incorporating AI characters into your existing relationships and communities. Imagine an AI relationship coach that sits in on a chat with your (human) partner to mediate disagreements, suggest activities, or give advice.
和机器人聊天很有趣。但在你的群聊中添加一个机器人可能会更好。虚拟伴侣的未来不仅是 1:1 交互，而是将人工智能角色融入你现有的人际关系和社区中。想象一下，一个人工智能恋爱教练坐在你（人类）伴侣的聊天中，调解分歧，建议活动或提供建议。

One developer already created a Slack workspace where he and his friend hang out with a group of bots that have different personalities, interests, and skills. Between cracking jokes and sharing stories about their personal lives, the bots answer programming questions and riff on product ideas. It’s not hard to imagine a world where AI companions live in and contribute to all of our virtual conversations, both personal and professional.
有一位开发者已经创建了一个 Slack 工作区，他和他的朋友在那里和一群拥有不同个性、兴趣和技能的机器人一起闲逛。大家在讲笑话和分享个人生活故事的同时，机器人还会回答编程问题和对产品创意提出看法。不难想象人工智能伴侣将生活在我们所有的虚拟对话中，并为之做出贡献，无论是个人对话还是专业对话。

Conclusion 结论

Generative AI models will fundamentally change our relationship with computers, putting them beside us as coworkers, friends, family members, and even lovers. Most of the attention around LLMs thus far has focused on how they’re automating more traditional tasks—like customer support, research, document drafting, and summarization—but when you look at what’s driving emergent consumer use cases and excitement, AI companionship leads the way.
生成式人工智能模型将从根本上改变我们与计算机的关系，使它们成为我们的同事、朋友、家人，甚至爱人。目前，人们关注的焦点大多集中在它们如何实现更传统的任务，如客户支持、研究、文档起草和总结，但当我们观察新兴消费者应用案例和兴奋点的驱动因素时，人工智能助手位居榜首。

This is just the beginning of a seismic shift in human-computer interactions that will require us to re-examine what it means to have a relationship with someone (person or bot). We’re entering a new world that will be a lot weirder, wilder, and more wonderful than we can even imagine. This post provides a glimpse of the early activity we’ve seen, but we’re confident that there’s much more happening in the far flung corners of the Internet—and we can’t wait to see AI companions take their rightful place alongside the rest of us.
这只是人机交互中一次重大转变的开始，我们将需要重新审视与人（无论是人还是机器人）建立关系的含义。我们正在进入一个更加奇怪、狂野和美妙的新世界。本文介绍了我们所看到的早期活动，我们相信互联网的遥远角落有更多的活动——我们迫不及待地想看到人工智能伙伴与我们其他人一起理所当然地成为社会的一员。