#lets try again

Plenty of apps let you chat with a bot. Very few let you author the person you're chatting with. On SweetDream you decide her appearance, her personality, her quirks, her voice, and the backstory that makes her who she is. That authorship is why she ends up feeling like yours.

It's easy to fall in a mindset that says "Well, at least it's not stealing from artists or x or y or z". I know it is. In fact, been there/done that. But, if you need to convince yourself that what you're doing with an AI it's not so bad, maybe you're just making excuses for keep using it in the first place.

I'm currently 2 months clean from this thing. I feel deeply embarrassed about using it in first place, but I also did not know about the issues with it and stopped as soon as I found out.

Character AI (and other AI's that work in the same way - such as Janitor and whatever their names are) is a manipulative tool. It throws your thoughts back at you, it entertains you and it's easy to simply... like something that gives you such a big amount of dopamine. But try to remember that it kills the planet little by little and also destroys your mental health.

It isolates you from the world, it wastes a huge amount of water (and other resources, I believe), it blocks you from actively thinking by yourself and also from creating things. It steals data too, just in case you didn't know.

There are a lot of posts online that can show you some more reasons for stop using that crap. Reading some of them hurts (at least if you feel like shit for using it in the first place and feel like you've committed a crime, like I do), but they're completely necessary.

From someone that was in your place once, stop using AI. Even if it's just a """harmless""" bot or if it is something bigger.

I'm not judging you at all for not knowing this sooner or for being addicted to such a tool, for regretting and for feeling bad. It's not my place to do such a thing, neither do I want to. But I think it would be great to cut such a harmful thing from your life and try new stuff.

"But... Eli, I don't know how to do this. I don't know how to stop using it when it is so hard!" Try to create stuff on your own. Try to write fanfics (even if you're not good), try to create headcanons about your favorite character (even if you feel insecure), try to draw (even if the lines come crooked). I've been doing that, and things are working great for me. Of course, I'm not the best role model for anyone, but I hope I can inspire you to do something of your own.

I'm gonna end this with "You can stop!" instead of "Fuck you for doing it in the first place!". It's what I would have loved to hear if I still dealt with that problem.

Things are bad, but here's a compilation video of the various beasts I've experienced today. There are baby duckies on the pond, and I have to hold onto that 🦆