guides
What Is JanitorAI? The Roleplaying Fantasy Chatbot Site, Explained
When chatbots and LLMs first rolled out, people joked that someday artificial intelligence wouldn't just replace our jobs, but our lovers too. JanitorAI, a platform that allows users to build, share and talk with AI-powered chatbots role-playing fictional characters, may be the first place where this new trend is gathering steam. How you feel about it depends on how you feel about AI, companionship and the line between reality and simulation.
What Is JanitorAI?
Janitor AI is a website you can subscribe to that offers a library of chatbots, programmed by users, that play different characters and take you different scenarios. You type in text and the chatbot responds to your inputs. You have to be a subscriber to make or converse with characters like Andri the Catboy, below, but non-subscribers can look at publicly-available chats with some characters.
How Does Janitor AI Work?
The website started in June of 2023, and is currently in its Beta testing phase. Bot makers join together on a community Discord, where they generate their characters and then publish them to the Janitor.ai site. The Discord seems to host community events, competitions and support sessions as well. There appears to be a contingent of furries present, as well as fans of other types of content.
Why Do People Use Janitor AI?
Many of the bots appear to generate blocks of prose narrating actions or responses. Playing with a chatbot in this way might be similar to reading a book, as users imagine scenarios in their mind and interact with characters. It could also be a place to explore feelings and fantasies.
The involvement of AI in the emotional lives of humans is likely a trend that will continue. Apps like Replika promise AI chatbot companions, and who hasn't, at this point in the game, at least once asked ChatGPT for life advice?
To some extent, all AI memes are a little involved in our emotions: we have feelings about ChatGPT when we try to mess with it, like in the Chat GPT DAN jailbreak, and we have feelings about Erosion Bird when we post edits of it on TikTok.
For the full history of Janitor AI, be sure to check out Know Your Meme's encyclopedia entry for more information.
