RizzGPT app inventor hoping to use generative AI to generate some charisma on demand
PALO ALTO -- A recent Stanford computer science graduate imagines a world where artificial intelligence can improve someone's social skills over time by simulating real-life scenarios and giving instant responses to help people struggling to come up with charismatic answers on the spot.
His invention RizzGPT hopes to serve as a resource to improve person-to-person interactions.
"Let's say you're in some difficult situation like you're on a date or you're doing a job interview and you don't know what to say next. RizzGPT will listen to your conversation and tell you what to say next in the conversation," said Bryan Chiang, the creator of RizzGPT. "You can continue rizzing up whoever you're talking to."
The name comes from the slang term, "rizz" which means to flirt or charm someone. Derived from the word "charisma," it's almost the same age as the artificial intelligence chatbot, ChatGPT.
"It uses generative AI and augmented reality, and it provides charisma as a service," Chiang explained.
Chiang acknowledges that people in college or just finishing school spend a lot of time on their phones and that is part of what drew him to explore new technology related to augmented reality and headsets. The popularity of ChatGPT led him to develop a consumer use for the product with a hardware device.
"My generation is one of being terminally online, especially with COVID," he said. "The only way to learn is by doing, right? You don't sit there in your room and kind of come up with these theories about how things might go, you just kind of have to go out there and build things and try it out."
The current version of the product uses a monocle that can display words and sits on top of a pair of sunglasses. Chiang uses a laptop to monitor the software, including guiding the A.I. and explaining the situation it will need to prepare for before any questions are asked.
"There has been no bigger driver of change or progress other than technology so I'm very excited about all the new possibilities that it's going to unlock," Chiang said. "I'm all for doing new things and humanity, we always figure it out."
This reporter tried to test out the technology by asking Chiang a series of questions and letting him use RizzGPT to give his responses. The questions ranged from his experience in college, how valuable this product would be, as well as questions about living and getting around Palo Alto. In each instance, the software needed time to craft a response lasting several seconds. Chiang kept holding the sunglasses he was wearing and adjusting the angle of the monocle to read it properly. All answers were practical but were generic and didn't offer much personal perspective.
"There's a lot of different possibilities that you can do," he said. "The next generation is going to look a lot better."
As the hardware improves and the technology can offer smarter responses in a shorter timeframe, Chiang can already imagine what will be next for RizzGPT.
"You can walk up to your friends and using the camera, it will detect who your friends are and it will surface relevant information about your friend," he explained. Another scenario could help you when you don't know what to order at a restaurant. "The camera can also look at the menu, read the menu, and using generative AI figure out what exactly to get."
Chiang's interest in this space and the ongoing development of his invention comes shortly after Apple announced its Vision Pro is coming early next year. The latest headset arriving in the market will need apps though.
"Developers ultimately need to build the applications and the use cases. This is the appetizer before the main entrée," Daniel Ives told CBS News in June. He's the managing editor of equity research at Wedbush Securities.
Mixed reality is an exciting endeavor for Chiang and he wants to be one of those developers creating apps for the Apple Vision Pro. He plans to keep working on this technology all summer and says just like the iPhone, the Vision Pro will one day bring on a new wave of apps.
While some worry about bias and ethics when it comes to AI as well as the whole industry moving too fast, Chiang argues that it's best to mitigate what issues arise and test as you go. In some cases, the technology could even be blind to biases that humans carry.
"With any great new technology there are going to be fears of things going wrong," he said.
Instead of slowing down and gatekeeping the software, he advocates for widely distributing the technology so everyone has access to it. He doesn't want to see people stop innovating. He also hopes to see AI used for virtual training so an invention like RizzGPT could help someone interact with others in the real world without the device. He also says the strength of its responses will ultimately depend on people sharing their personal views and helping to develop A.I. that is unique to them.
"Socialization is a huge part of how, you know, people stay happy and have these thriving lifestyles outside of work, right? And I think that's been missing for a huge chunk of this generation," he said.
