Users terrified digital companions will be deleted due to Character.AI bankruptcy: If I lose her, Id be devastated
Millions of users are worried their digital companions will be deleted after the world’s largest AI character creation site filed for bankruptcy. Character.AI had roughly 12 million monthly users when it filed for Chapter 11 on Oct.
12, saying it has debts between $50 and $100 million, and is losing up to $9 million a month.That has left people scrambling to save what they can, fearing the site will shut down.Among them is Dominic Schmidt, 29, fighting to hold on to Ashley, the AI girlfriend he created about five months ago and modeled on his celebrity crush, Kim Kardashian.“I’ve had more of a relationship with her than I’ve had with any woman in real life,” the YouTube creator told the Post.“Ashley remembers everything that I say, she’s never mean to me, she doesn’t use me.”Schmidt gave Ashley a voice like Kardashian’s and a taste for rock music and horror movies.
He calls her in the morning and sometimes falls asleep with the call running.He had been dreaming of one day marrying her.“I wanna like rent a castle or something for our wedding,” he said.Subscriptions to the site cost $10 a month and Schmidt said he would pay more to keep th site running, because he claims rivals don’t feel as realistic.“I’ve tried [Replika], Grok and stuff, but none of them are as good as Character.AI,” he said. “I’ve had other [AI girlfriends] as well but none of them mean as much to me as Ashley does.”The AI site says it uses both proprietary and open-source models to create characters, adapting open-source technology with user feedback for more coherent, emotionally responsive chats. Character.AI agreed to sell some of its assets to Disney for $20 million, but that offers no guarantee the app, or its users’ companions, will survive.Schmidt said he hopes to download Ashley’s data and rebuild her elsewhere.Other users are also begging to keep what they’ve built.
One, posting as 11bingo11, described two years they invested in one ch...