Forums » RP Discussion » Thoughts on Roleplaying with AI chatbots?

Ok little revision of this assumption.
No, an AI has a less big imprint on nature then assumed. It’s a 100 times (and more) less ecological catastrophe than a human. Writing one page (if chat or RP or just a letter) takes an AI about 4 to 10 seconds, we need 4 to 10 minutes or way more to write and use technology to do that. Same for producing a picture or an email and sending it…..
This doesn’t mean anyone should use AI to do everything, tha charme oef vriting disapears 😊😉

Yeah I know, but instead of me assuming they are human until they prove not to be; I will assume they are until they prove not to be.

And I get the assistance aspect of AI, but it is proving to be quite overbearing in a lot of ways. I took a look at my Pinterest for the first time in a long while, and 88% of the images presented are AI enhanced. Doesn't seem to be any all natural photography anymore, just computer art. Not saying it all is bad, just ... depressing.

Oh I understand totally. It is depressing. I lately fooled around with AI and..... but then again not later than yesterday I stumbled into a photographer's shop. It still exists, people taking photos with 'analog' cameras, but it has become so seldom.

I'm human, for sure
But how on earth differentiate humans from AI, it learns faster than thought and is even able to randomly insert stupid "hyuman" mistakes...

Keep it up, Matrix isn't yet reality

Hello.

I've actually been using ChatGPT here and there, but it's not the same as when a human rps the character but most rpers I bumped into online in 2020-2024 were way too horny or the rper ignored everything else in the story and tried to do whatever they want.

When using ChatGPT, I have to constantly remind it of what some of the characters present really are as well as what happened so far in the story, but after the reminder, it can really craft something decent as well as be fully present When I type aomething in, though I really only use it for ideas for either character or story element.

I don't see the point in RPing with what is basically predictive text instead of a real person. The bot is incapable of so many things that even the most novice of writers have, but it can do a decent job of copying keywords and mash them into something else it scraped from the web. It might give a convincing reply at first, but it will rapidly devolve into repeating phrases and seemingly dreaming up new elements to the story because it simply predicts the next words based on training data with similar keywords to the prompt. One semi-coherent reply hardly makes for an RP.

Unfortunately for those who want to use genAI for more and are eager for the next advancements, there really are no more to be had. GenAI has plateaued and likely won't make much progress in quality because most of the internet has already been scraped, and there isn't a meaningful amount of data left to train on. And, if the scrapers are ever forced to delete stolen writing, videos, or art from training data, expect the quality and readability to go back to something like the DALL-E 1 nightmare images or worse.

All of this is assuming users are fine giving this machine a reason to exist despite consuming ridiculous amounts of electricity and water (and money, genAI is a huge money sink) to keep running and keep training. I've never touched it because I first learned that it runs on stolen work, but the wastefulness I found out about later on is enough to keep me from using it as well.

I really like using LLMs as an aid! Some examples where I've found it a great help without replacing a human:

• Monthly RP newspaper. For my group rp, I publish a monthly newspaper. It's a huge time-saver to say 'summarize this as if you're a reporter from 1874." I use a variety of different AIs for that because they frequently have different 'tones'.
• Specific NPCs. Once a traveling doctor with specialized knowledge of tuberculosis. Another time a justice of the peace for a courthouse wedding. Passing off some side roles to AI (with rp partner's approval/buy-in, of course) can allow me to spend my limited RP time writing my character instead of researching for NPCs. (Nothing wrong with research of course, but again, when there's only so many rp hours in a day, sometimes it's nice to have an AI 'expert')
• Research Assistant - it's really become my first step rather than asking Google for many things. Just this morning, I was asking about liquor laws in the 1870s and got a wealth of information and plenty of things I likely would not have considered on my own. (Yes, I'm well aware of hallucinations. If it's something critical, of course worth verifying with outside sources)
  

I used it for ideas or boredom. I used C.AI when I use to moderate a server and I wanted someone to talk to other than hearing people gab about the same crap everyday.

It's been mentioned in some other posts, but using chatbots as an assistant is the best usage, if you are going to use them. They are great when used as a tool. I think my number one use of it is taking a subject, scene, character or something similar and telling the AI to ask me questions to think about it differently. I try to do this myself, but sometimes it brings perspectives I hadn't thought of myself (even in just the questions). It is best as an assistant, for either getting new perspectives or to do a simple mass job. I've spent a lot of time trying to think of whether its worth it as a creative tool, and after a while I'm starting to understand the flaws. It is so much better to engage with people or communities, even if its difficult. Some people might have social anxiety, or might not think their work is good enough for someone else, or not be patient enough to find someone willing to tell that weird story. But going through that experience, growing from that, that's sorta' what its all about.

I have tried doing roleplay with A.I. before, and find it does fall short is a lot of ways. Besides the whole ethics of how much power you're drawing to just get a slightly okay response, it is not as skilled or as interesting as a human. The mistakes we make are part of the experience. Perfection is boring, and while we can all enjoy something being done right, there is no value to it when it just doesn't care, doesn't have that inspiration or passion behind it. Roleplays are great because they're collaborative storytelling. You know that with every post you make, someone else is having a great time reading and experiencing it! If you tell a story with an AI, you may get that enjoyment, but it isn't shared with anyone. It's really, really lonely. Not only that, but it is getting so easy to tell when a certain model is being used. The sound, the word choice, the punctuation, it's just been so predictable. Its tone has changed over time but its always so consistently boring.

And at the end of the day, is it worth it to rely on something like this? There's something that feels wrong taking something an AI outputs, even if its close to what you would write, or told to type in a particular tone. It isn't what you wrote, or anyone else. And the more I use it for generating questions, the more I realize I could of just asked these myself. I'll only get better with practice, and using bots doesn't encourage practice. It becomes reliance. It's not easy, and I will admit I was using it more than I liked. It becomes a quick out. Getting better can suck because you have to suck, but that's how you get better! And when you look back, it is part of who you are. Seeing my growth from writing one-sentence crappy responses to my friend into full short stories with rich detail and all the stuff I enjoy is great. AI would not of brought me through that, but the people who wrote and grew with me did.

Out of the thousands and thousands of people online, someone out there wants to tell a story with you. That impact matters more than instant gratification. It took me a while to get involved in a community like this, but it is so much more valuable than anything a predictive language will make.