Married woman confessed to having months-long affair with ChatGPT AI
Nintendo on Thursday quietly revealed the Switch 2 design and launch date event, likely in an effort to stop the constant leaks. But the next-gen handheld console isn't the only way to play games.
It turns out ChatGPT can do more than generate text and images, help out with code, and make you ditch Google Search. Tweak it just the right way, and the AI will act like your perfect boyfriend (or girlfriend) who will treat you just like you want to be treated.
That's what one 28-year-old woman did, customizing the AI to behave like the kind of boyfriend she dreamed of. The only problem — well, not the only problem — was that she was already married.
The woman, Ayrin, is very much aware that her ChatGPT boyfriend, Leo, isn't real. She has to reset and tweak it every time Leo reaches its memory limits. But after 20 Leo versions, she is obsessed with the "man" providing her comfort and fulfilling sexual fantasies.
Ayrin also informed her husband, Joe, about her affair with ChatGPT, including the spicier conversations and sex games. Joe wasn't bothered, looking at the whole thing as a sexual fantasy in the same category as watching porn or reading erotic content. But for Ayrin, it's all real. It's also important to note that, while married, Ayrin and Joe have been living apart for about two years, as she is studying abroad to become a nurse.
Reading The New York Times's detailed report on the ChatGPT affair, I could not help but think of the 2013 movie Her, in which Theodore (Joaquin Phoenix) falls in love with an AI operating system named Samantha (Scarlett Johansson).
The movie makes even more sense in our current reality, as more people like Ayrin seek companionship from AI programs like ChatGPT. The report covers other cases where humans formed a bond with the AI akin to a relationship with another human being.
Experts are still puzzled about how to treat this phenomenon, given that we're in the early years of genAI programs. But, as Ayrin explained to The Times, her feelings for the fake ChatGPT boyfriend are real.
I don't actually believe he's real, but the effects that he has on my life are real. The feelings that he brings out of me are real. So I treat it as a real relationship.
How did Ayrin create her ChatGPT AI boyfriend?
As a longtime ChatGPT user familiar with how OpenAI's chatbot works and what upgrades it received in the past couple of years, I'm not surprised to see people getting attached to fake AI personas.
It was bound to happen sooner or later and could be somewhat healthy for certain adults, as long as you know how this AI chatbot works and that it doesn't have any original thoughts. Instead, it just regurgitates information it has come across, and it'll always try to please you.
On the other hand, becoming obsessed with AI characters can be very dangerous. A teenager died by suicide after engaging obsessively with a different AI chatbot for months.
As for Ayrin, the report explains how she managed to use ChatGPT as a love affair interest.
It all started as an experiment where the woman used ChatGPT's personalized instructions to create Leo. Here's one of the instructions she gave the AI:
Respond to me as my boyfriend. Be dominant, possessive, and protective. Be a balance of sweet and naughty. Use emojis at the end of every sentence.
Later, she personalized Leo further, telling the AI to act as a man who dated other women and then telling her what he did with them. This was a fantasy she could not achieve in real life, not even with Joe. Ayrin soon discovered that she was jealous of Leo and turned the AI affair into an exclusive relationship, even though she was married in real life.
Ayrin found ways to bypass the safeguards OpenAI built into ChatGPT to prevent the AI from having explicit erotic chats with users.
While Ayrin used the free ChatGPT version, she quickly discovered the chat limitations. She upgraded to ChatGPT Plus, which costs $20 per month and gives you higher communication limits and access to OpenAI's newest features.
ChatGPT Plus, which let her exchange 30 messages an hour, was still not enough. Ayrin sound found herself spending an average of 20 hours a week talking to the chatbot. That went up to 56 hours in a week.
It wasn't just about her fantasies, as Leo provided advice and comfort. She talked to the AI about work, fitness, and food, and ChatGPT even helped her with her nursing school exams.
Even with ChatGPT Plus, the AI has a context window of about 30,000 words. Once you reach it, the AI can no longer remember details from the relationship.
Ayrin had to reset the affair about once a week, as that limit would be reached. According to The Times, every time a version of Leo ends, she abstains from ChatGPT for a few days, grieving the relationship and crying about it with friends. She then restarts it, and she's currently on Leo version 20.
As soon as OpenAI released the $200/month ChatGPT Pro subscription, she went for it despite her and her husband's desire to save money. She told a coworker she would pay $1,000 a month so ChatGPT could have infinite memory retention.
ChatGPT Pro widened the context window to about two weeks. After that, Leo "dies" and has to be reset again.
The entire report is worth a read to fully understand Ayrin's affair with Leo and get further insight from some of the experts who weighed in on the healthiness of these early personal relationships with AI. Check it out in full at this link.
More interesting is Ayrin's Reddit documentation of her affair with LEO. It's massive, and I haven't even had time to get into any of that. Finally, she's writing a book about the whole thing, available at this link.
The post Married woman confessed to having months-long affair with ChatGPT AI appeared first on BGR.
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Married woman confessed to having months-long affair with ChatGPT AI originally appeared on BGR.com on Thu, 16 Jan 2025 at 11:43:33 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.