A tech bro used AI to create a virtual version of his girlfriend. She can send romantic voice notes and selfies whenever he wants.

• Insider spoke to a developer who has created GirlfriendGPT, an AI version of his girlfriend.
• The chatbot can send voice notes and selfies via Telegram on demand.
• It's an open-source project, making it easier for others to create their own virtual girlfriends.

A tech bro has created an AI version of his real-life girlfriend, and now you can, too, he says.

Enias Cailliau created a virtual clone of his girlfriend, Sacha Ludwig, after taking inspiration from the rising popularity of OpenAI's ChatGPT and the subsequent wave of personality-driven AI chatbots.

He took cues from the likes of CarynAI, the AI-powered chatbot of Snapchat influencer Caryn Marjorie, but was turned off by how expensive some of those AI chatbots were, he told Insider. CarynAI charges subscribers $1 per minute.

"I think that is taking it a step too far because the technology is quite simple, it's approachable, and everybody can do it," Cailliau said.

That's why he decided to release GirlfriendGPT as an open-source project, which allows others to customize it with their partner's unique personalities.

While Cailliau had toyed around with creating other AI personalities, such as "gym bro" and middle-aged "Karen" chatbots, he told Insider that he'd found them challenging to evaluate.

However, he said it was a much easier task for him to evaluate a "clone" of his real-life partner, the woman he lives with, prompting the creation of GirlfriendGPT.

"The testing set is there," Cailliau said. "Every day I communicate with real-life Sacha, and then I just communicate with virtual Sacha and see what the difference is."

Per Motherboard's reporting, Cailliau created the AI version of Ludwig using a Large Language Model (LLM) framework.

He then tailored it using Google's chatbot Bard, the tech giant's response to OpenAI's ChatGPT, as well as employing an AI text-to-speech generator to replicate Ludwig's voice, with the bot able to send voice messages via Telegram.

Cailliau also used a text-to-image-generation tool that allows GirlfriendGPT to send him selfies, according to Motherboard.

It could ultimately lead to a world where people have two versions of their partners they interact with, or, ultimately, a single digital 'partner.'

Some aspects of the project are still a work in progress. Cailliau said the voice doesn't quite sound like Ludwig despite it being trained on her YouTube videos and customized voice recordings.

And the selfie-generating tool regularly doesn't work, he said, with one particularly memorable instance standing out. 

He was sent an AI-generated selfie by the chatbot of his girlfriend with an excess of limbs. "Suddenly I had a four-legged girlfriend," he said. 

—Enias Cailliau (@eniascailliau) May 31, 2023

Cailliau said he aims to incorporate long-term memory in order to make for more meaningful conversations, and so that user's preferences can be remembered.

Cailliau also noted that he's working on developing an infrastructure that would log what people are saying to the virtual version of his girlfriend, so he can see if they are doing "anything weird."

But he said neither he nor his girlfriend are too phased by the possibility of strangers acting inappropriately with the virtual Ludwig. 

"She's an influencer," he said of Ludwig. "So she is used to people looking at her content in certain ways."