OpenAI presented GPT-4o on Mondayshowcasing real-time audio features that feel like a Spike Jonze movie Her is now becoming a reality. Just like in the movie, OpenAI gave ChatGPT a vigorous, warm and possibly flirtatious voice that actually sounded human. I’ll make an early and fairly obvious prediction: people will fall in love with GPT-4o, just like they did in the movie.
No, I don’t want to fall in love the way you might fall in love with Google Search. You love using Google Search, but I think people will literally fall in love with it With GPT-4o or whatever it is, they display on a dead bot.
AI Girls are already proving to be a relatively huge utilize case for generative AI technology. When OpenAI released the GPT store, AI girls quickly flooded the zone. They offer companionship without the real burden of a real human partner. Now that ChatGPT can supposedly talk in real time with emotional intonations, I think OpenAI has simply thrown its cover on the matter, but maybe that was the point.
Don’t underestimate how impressive this technology is. OpenAI demos purport to show that robots can now talk to humans in real time, in a conversation that is almost indistinguishable from a phone call with a real person. If the final version performs like Monday’s demo, OpenAI would seem to have connected the dots for many people about how much AI will change our world.
OpenAI employees noticed that this technology resembles a movie Her. Immediately after the premiere, Sam Altman tweeted the word “she”. Another OpenAI employee who works on “Audio AGI research” has a photo from the movie in his bio. Let’s face it, that was the goal. However, as is often the case in the tech industry, sizzling companies like OpenAI move quickly and amaze us with technology without considering the consequences.
As we saw in the video Her, Joaquin Phoenix’s character slowly fell in love with his AI companion, voiced by Scarlett Johansson. It’s impossible not to notice the similarities between Johansson’s voice and the one OpenAI debuted on Monday morning. At one point, GPT-4o laughed at a joke an OpenAI employee had made. On another GPT-4o he said, “That’s nice of you.” I bet a lot of people don’t have someone in their life who says any of these things. I’d also bet many of them would jump at the chance to have at least one voice that does just that – artificial or not.
Socializing is a pretty obvious utilize case for a chatbot. However, real-time voice calls offer more intimacy than text on screen. Nearly zero latency makes conversation feel natural, like a long-distance relationship, whenever you want it.
The emotional nature of GPT-4o makes the AI chatbot much more personal than ever before. Siri was tempted to talk to a robot, but these demos made it clear that GPT-4o has emotional artificial intelligence that can recognize your feelings and match your energy. This makes GPT-4o feel like a real companion, adding a touch of humanity to your smartphone’s operating system.
We have already seen A the breakdown of society when Replika released an update to its much more primitive chatbot in 2023, many users considered it the loss of a friend.
But there is one human emotion that GPT-4o lacks: frustration. The OpenAI team showed that GPT-4o doesn’t mind being disturbed, which is a very real complaint that women bring to their partners. This shows how some men who are unable to maintain a meaningful relationship with a woman may turn to such an AI chatbot. This can provide lonely people with a meaningful connection. But it can also make it much easier for people to give up trying to develop the growth necessary to try something real. GPT-4o could make our devices even more enticing than the human connections that many of us already miss, simply for the sake of convenience.
I would be remiss if I didn’t express my concerns about such technology. People are reporting increasing levels of loneliness in the 21st century. One in three Americans I feel lonely every week. While companionship may not be the main thing OpenAI sells in GPT-4o, it may be what people choose most.
This isn’t the first time our devices offer companionship but actually isolate us even further from each other. Social media has tapped into people’s innate desire for connection, but it has turned out to be a grand illusion. Low-stakes interpersonal connections behind a screen often fall miniature and just as often pit us against each other. AI companions like GPT-4o take this phenomenon a step further by completely removing humans from the equation.
There have been many concerns around generative AI, but they have been ignored. The OpenAI demo marked the emergence of a newly discovered technology and potentially a novel social problem that we will grapple with for decades. The worst side effect of technology I have seen in my life is its ability to isolate people from each other. GPT-4o just made this isolation much easier.
