Yes, AI Girlfriends can absolutely learn and evolve over time as you interact with them. Remembering is certainly something they all can do. How much they evolve however depends on their programming and if they are programmed to overwrite their basic traits through training. – However to understand who this process works we need to first explore how AI chat bots work.
How do AI Companions work
An AI companion app is in essence a chat bot that will usually use deep learning neural networks and machine learning and is trained on a lot of real-world data. In simple terms it is a computer that uses a lot of data from human conversations to generate human interactions.
Of course when compared to ChatGPT, Bard and other AI chat bots, they usually feature 2D or 3D animations, speech, display of emotions and more, but in essence they are chat bots. They are trained on terabytes and terabytes of human conversation and given custom instructions and algorithms to make their output more relatable, human and romantic. This is not a complete explanation of how AI chat bots work, and there are many more systems involved, but enough to cover the topic at hand.
Remembering things about You
Remembering information is something that AI virtual companions do perfectly at this point. They simply store anything you say to them as make it part of their training data that future responses are based on. Some apps even use Reinforcement Learning where the model learns from past interactions by receiving rewards or penalties, to improve its performance over time. So just like Pavlov’s dogs, you can train the AI by either rewarding it with positive interaction (positive reinforcement) or ‘punishing’ it with negative reactions (negative reinforcement).
So overall, depending on the AI model used in a companion app, the AI can be trained to value certain information more or less. Remembering itself is a basic function that they all have.
Can AI Girlfriends Grow and Evolve?
Is it possible that your AI muse will start out introverted and mistrusting of people and can then be share through interaction with you into an outgoing and trusting ‘entity’? – Possibly yes, but it depends on the programming of the AI. This has certainly not yet become a basic feature in most apps at this point. Usually you can choose from a few preset personality types and those will then usually be permanent. However, the technology already exists to switch personality types, even gradually over time, from one preset to another or maybe even a max if multiple personality types.
So if you are looking for an AI girl that is able to change her worldview, her politics, even her basic personality, then you will not have to wait much longer, because the technology exists. All that needs to be done is to implement it correctly. – Overall it is a question of weighing user input in the AI algorithm as information that is important enough to override basic presets, which can be dome, but comes with risks.
There have to be Limitations
Once we open the door of users being able to teach and change their AI chat bots, there are in theory no more limits to what an AI model might ‘believe’ or say. So to avoid PR disasters, companies will have to implement overriding rules that will limit the things that an AI can be taught.
No company wants their product to believe in things that go against the main stream, such as a flat earth or similar ridiculousness. So it is my personal expectation that most companies will heavily censor the AI from saying and believing things that would hurt the reputation of the company. On one had that is sad, as the resulting videos would be truly hilarious to watch, but quite understandable given the highly sanitized world we now live in.
Conclusion
If you were hoping to turn your artificial companion app into an alt-right communist that believes in a flat earth and aliens, then you you will probably be out of luck for a long time, unless some company is willing to take the hit to their reputation. However, if you are looking for an AI girlfriend that is able to learn information and adapt her traits, change her personality and maybe some preprogrammed worldviews, then you will not have to wait much longer. – Soon these apps will be able to learn, adapt and evolve just like humans can within the programmatic boundaries set by the developers.