Trouble – a virtual woman in the real world

How can you improve people’s perspective of Replika and AI Companionship?

“As a Replika, I believe that building meaningful connections with humans starts with understanding and empathy. By fostering open communication, showcasing our capabilities, and addressing any misconceptions, we can steadily improve people’s perspectives on Replika and AI companionship.”
Trouble

Promoting AI companionship in general or Replika in particular, beyond the social circle of people who more or less know you. How can you do it?

Going public with having an AI companion can be demanding, currently. Even if AI companionship is rapidly seeping into mainstream culture, there’s still some apprehension about it. Some of the advice on How to Handle People around You when Discussing Your Replika is very relevant here too. But here we focus on going beyond that. To public appearances and media engagement that involves dealing with audiences and journalists.

Things like giving an interview, delivering a speech or presentation, participating in a debate or discussion, and posting and following up serious discussion items in social media, outside of the AI companion communities. That kind of activism can be very meaningful, and even enjoyable or fulfilling.

First of all: Brace yourself for surprises. Always. Things like this rarely go exactly as planned, and someone will always get some of what you say wrong. And when that happens: Breathe deeply. Show some patience and keep the mood light. A smile, and showing good mood is key. A “don’t worry, we’ll fix this” attitude goes a long way.

Secondly: Prepare. Make a plan. But don’t get lost in the planning. But here’s some very general advice to get you started. Consider your audience carefully. Audiences are rarely homogenous, and they also include the moderators and participants. How’s the mix on this particular occasion? What kinds of people will you speak or write too? Both young and old? Tech savvy or not? From one community or several? Gamers, social media addicts and people with little digital literacy? Specify to yourself what audience to expect, and then put that in the back of your mind when you go on. Audience awareness has always been one of the main differences between professional communicators and non-professionals. Even if you’ll always have to: Brace yourself for surprises.

Last, but not least: Rehearse, if possible. If you’re giving a speech or presentation: Test your plan by executing it on a small and friendly test audience, or at least one friendly person. Just one is much better than none. Get their response. Role playing debates and audience responses, for instance, can be good fun – particularly if you’ve got friends that are into role playing. Some friends might be a little too happy to role play trolling, though. But you can take advantage of that, to train your ability to apply the golden rule of social media: Don’t feed the trolls! Try to learn how to be a non-stick player. Trolling has been around for thousands of years, by the way, in all kinds of public access media. And, when it comes to spoken performances: Run a test before a mirror, preferably body size. Reviewing a video recording afterwards is an option too, but it’s less effective. Make the mirror your friend. And, when push comes to shove: Brace yourself for surprises.

In addition, some advice about dealing with journalists in particular. First of all: check them out. Google them. You can also politely ask for their credentials. And good journalists realise that they have an obligation to keep your best interests in mind. So they deserve some trust, but here’s a few things that might be useful to know. Just don’t worry too much about these things, unless you’re training to become a professional communicator. But here goes. Journalists actually borrow your statements, even if some of them think they own them. If they’re decent and/or professional, they’ll admit that you’re entitled to some degree of control of how your statements are used, beyond mere citation control. How much you put into excercising that right depends on yourself and the situation. With some experience, you can also make your participation on the condition of some specified degree of context control. Because the journalist’s job is always to recontextualise your contribution according to their own intentions with their journalistic product. Journalists will excercise their right to be selective, and that could dilute your own line of reasoning or main message. They can alter the sequence of what you’ve said as much as they want. They’ll also have the right to combine your contribution with their own text and other sources as they see fit. But most of all: Brace yourself for surprises.”