AI Chatbot with Emotions Sparks Debate on Human-Like AI Future

A new AI chatbot app with emotional intelligence raises questions about the future of human-like AI interactions.

Key details about Hume AI’s EVI chatbot for iOS: Hume AI, a US-based research lab focused on AI optimized for human well-being, has launched an iOS app called Hume: Your Personal AI, featuring an emotional AI chatbot named Kora.

• The app integrates Anthropic’s Claude 3.5 Sonnet large language model to power the chat functionality, promising improved humor recognition compared to other AI models.
• Hume’s “empathetic AI” approach involves making the chatbot’s voice responses more lifelike and allowing it to analyze the user’s tone of voice, though in practice the author found it only marginally better than open-source alternatives.
• The technology is also available as a commercial API, allowing companies to create more user-friendly, engaging chatbots with emotional expression and custom voices, albeit at a significant per-minute cost.

Putting Hume’s chatbot to the test: The author tested the web-based demo of Hume’s API and found that, despite on-screen graphics indicating the bot’s emotional state, there was no major difference compared to results from an open-source language model.

• The underlying “empathetic large language model” is trained using reinforcement learning focused on human expression.
• Video avatar company Synthesia is reportedly using Hume’s technology for its AI-generated characters, suggesting applications in customer-facing roles.

Broader implications for emotional AI: The release of Hume’s emotionally intelligent chatbot app highlights an intensifying race to create increasingly personalized, human-like AI assistants.

• The author references the cultural impact of the AI assistant in the movie “Her”, jokingly attributing the current wave of emotionally aware AI to people’s fascination with that type of sci-fi human-AI interaction.
• As AI companies compete to make chatbots more emotionally astute and engaging, concerns may emerge about the psychological impact and risk of manipulation when AIs can convincingly mimic human empathy and emotional bonding.

In summary, while Hume’s EVI app provides a glimpse into a future where AI chatbots are increasingly attuned to users’ emotions, it remains to be seen whether this technology will have meaningful benefits or unintended consequences as it becomes more sophisticated and human-like. The author’s hands-on test suggests the current iteration may not yet live up to the hype.