Don't let the adorable AI agents fool you

You're not imagining it, the AI agents are getting alarmingly cute. First, there was Meta's Muse, whose mascot is a fuzzy egg-shaped creature called Jolly. Now, OpenAI has unveiled its own muppet-like personal agents, Dots. Both companies are encouraging users to treat their agent like a digital pet, with distinct names and appearances. Given the current rhetoric around AI safety and the public's general suspicion of the industry, it's not surprising that companies would want to make its agents look cute and non-threatening.