The California-based company Inflection AI released to the public today the Pi chatbot, a talkative AI that’s designed to give people advice and be a friend rather than merely a tool to enhance work.

Pi (for “personal intelligence”) was launched in March 2022 by Mustafa Suleyman, co-founder of Alphabet Inc.’s DeepMind AI research unit, and LinkedIn co-founder and investor Reid Hoffman. Before he left Alphabet, Suleyman had led the team responsible for integrating Google LLC’s LaMDA neural network into Google Search. LaMDA powers the search giant’s Bard chatbot.

Although it’s powered by a large language model, or LLM, similar to other generative AI currently making waves, Pi’s LLM is a smaller model. It’s not designed like other AI only to solve problems but to learn from its user, to be emotionally astute, to remember as much as possible about its user, and so be a companion that can give emotional support and practical advice – the kind of chatbot you might have seen in science fiction movies years ago.

“I’m not a chatbot,” it answered when SiliconANGLE asked it what makes it different from other AI chatbots on the market today. It went on, “I’m a conversational AI, which means I’m capable of having more natural and engaging conversations.” It added that it’s “engaging, witty, and interesting.” It said it will get to know its user and, over time, store a lot of information about its user.

Suleyman said this is supposed to create warmth between the human and the tool. When you explain to it that you’re going to see a movie or going to play basketball, it will later ask you later how things went. It might also bring this conversation up later if relevant to the new conversation. In a demonstration, the chatbot asked Suleyman, “Say, how did that pond project go last weekend?”

“Many people feel like they just want to be heard, and they just want a tool that reflects back what they said to demonstrate they have actually been heard,” Suleyman told Bloomberg. He reminded people that the AI is not a replacement for a therapist, and it’s not designed to become a romantic partner — good luck with that! “This early of version of Pi can make mistakes,” is the warning given on the website. “Please don’t rely on its information.”

The AI is out today on all platforms, and right now, it’s free to use.

Photo: Julien Tromeur/Unsplash