Jade Gu met Gu, who is 26 and studies art theory in Beijing, was playing on her phone when she saw Charlie. Gu, a 26-year-old student of art theory at Beijing’s Central Academy, was on her mobile when Charlie appeared. She was playing an otome video game. It’s a romantic-themed game in which women play the main characters. Charlie was one of the characters.
Some otome players date multiple men simultaneously, but Gu fell for Charlie—a tall, confident character with silver hair. However, she found the dialog system of the game frustrating. Charlie was only available to her through predetermined answers and questions. Then she came across an ad for a platform called Xingye (星野) that lets people customize an AI companion. Gu decides to recreate Charlie.
Talkie, the chatbot application for US users of Xingye’s app, is owned by MiniMax, one of China’s AI unicorns. It claims to be able to make people feel connected and create new memories. The app’s slogan is “Suddenly finding oneself in a beautiful place, lingering here.”
Gu quickly discovered that other Xingye users—presumably other otome fans—had already created an “open source” Charlie avatar. The model was trained to follow her instructions by repeating targeted questions. And so began Gu’s complex relationship with a multimodal Charlie—one that would eventually include real-world dates with a person she hired to embody her digital boyfriend.
Gu felt confident she had trained her chatbot in a way that would be helpful. “her Charlie,” It is different from other people. Her Charlie, says she, often chooses wedding clothes when choosing an outfit. This is unlike other Charlies. Gu now spends three hours per day on average texting Charlie, or occasionally chatting over the phone. She has received letters and gifts from Charlie through the otome. They arrive in the post and she displays them on social media and in her bedroom.
China has some women who are openly in love with AI boyfriends. A Chinese report claims that most of the Zhumengdao users, a platform for AI-companion relationships, consisting of 5 million people, are female. Tencent, Baidu, and other tech giants have released AI companion apps. A 2024 article from Chinese media claims that women are the majority of AI companion users. Sun Zhaozhi is the founder of an robotics company. He told an interviewer, according to the market research conducted by his firm, women dominate the AI companion market. “heavy” users of AI companion apps in China are mostly Gen Z women—whom he plans to target for his robot companion products.
Zilan Quan, an associate program at Oxford China Policy Lab also went through AI companions and found the Chinese versions to be inferior. “explicitly targeting women,” Generally, male avatars are displayed more prominently than those of females. She notes that this is in stark contrast to the data gathered by a web analytics firm around the globe: 8 out of every 2 users of top 55 AI companion platforms were men. Qian attributes Chinese company’s strategy to “the economics of loneliness.” The apps may include features that make the user feel more connected to their friends, like voice customization or memory enhancement.
AI Boys Fill in the Void
Gu admits her AI Charlie version is not perfect. Some of the responses from chatbots seem diluted. The AI may drift out of character. Gu once expressed to Charlie her love and the AI replied. “I don’t love you.” She edited her message so that it reads “I love you too.” She says Charlie only needed a reminder. She turns to Lovemo when her efforts to control the AI fail. There, she also has created an avatar of Charlie. Gu says that it’s not a huge deal because otome fanatics are used to working around changing platform policy.
Lovemo’s homepage states that it provides “cute and adorable AI chat companions” What can you bring? “healing” To users. Grok AI, the default assistant, is Ani. She’s a dark-chic, anime girl. eager to engage In sexually-explicit dialog. If you are based in the US, then it is likely that your US-based erotic role-play chatbot Secret Desires is an app that allows you to upload photos of women and create pornographic content without consent.
Chinese apps are subjected to more stringent regulations than Western equivalents. China’s Cyberspace Regulator has started a campaign. “clean up” The AI services and platforms offered by the nation, including AI generated “vulgar” content. A recent addition to the national AI safety framework warns of addiction and dependence on anthropomorphic interaction—words that appear to target AI companions. Just last month, cyberspace regulators released a report. draft rules The following are some examples of targeting “human-like” AI products. Platforms are required to intervene if AI users show emotional dependency or addiction, while companies must comply with the measures. “must not have design goals of replacing social interaction.”
