Personalized Ai Companion App Dot Is Shutting Down

Dot, an AI companion app that aimed to beryllium a friend and confidante, is shutting down, nan institution announced connected Friday. On a connection published connected its website, nan startup down Dot, New Computer, said that nan merchandise will stay operational until October 5, giving users clip to download their data.

Launched successful 2024 by co-founders Sam Whitmore and erstwhile Apple designer Jason Yuan, Dot waded into what’s now go a much arguable area for AI chatbots. The app they created was described arsenic an AI “friend and companion,” which would go much personalized to you and your interests complete clip successful bid to connection advice, sympathy, and affectional support.

As Yuan explained astatine nan time, Dot was “facilitating a narration pinch my soul self. It’s for illustration a surviving reflector of myself, truthful to speak,” he said.

However, this whitethorn not beryllium a safe area to put successful arsenic a smaller startup.

As AI exertion has go much mainstream, location person been reports of really emotionally susceptible group person been led into delusional reasoning by AI chatbots for illustration ChatGPT. This has led to a arena described arsenic “AI psychosis,” resulting from really nan scyophantic chatbots reenforce a user’s confused aliases paranoid beliefs.

As Dot shuts down, AI chatbot apps broadly person been falling nether accrued scrutiny complete information concerns. OpenAI is currently being sued by nan parents of a California teen who took his life aft messaging pinch ChatGPT astir his suicidal thoughts. Other stories person highlighted really AI companion apps tin reenforce unhealthy behaviors successful users who are mentally unwell. This week, 2 U.S. attorneys wide sent a missive to OpenAI complete information concerns.

Dot’s makers didn’t reside whether these types of issues had weighed connected nan founders’ minds. Instead, nan little station only notes that Whitmore and Yuan’s shared “Northstar” had diverged.

“Rather than discuss either vision, we’ve decided to spell our abstracted ways and upwind down operations,” nan station explains.

“We want to beryllium delicate to nan truth that this intends galore of you will suffer entree to a friend, confidante, and companion, which is somewhat unprecedented successful software, truthful we want to springiness you immoderate clip to opportunity goodbye. Dot will stay operational until October 5, and until past you tin download each of your information by navigating to nan settings page and tapping ‘Request your data.’”

The station suggests nan startup had “hundreds of thousands” of users, but information from app intelligence supplier Appfigures sees only 24,500 life downloads connected iOS since launching successful June 2024. (There was nary Android version.)