The ongoing revolution in language modelling has led to various novel applications, some of which rely on the emerging "social abilities" of large language models (LLMs). Already, many turn to the new "cyber friends" for advice during pivotal moments of their lives and trust them with their deepest secrets, implying that accurate shaping of LLMs' "personalities" is paramount. Leveraging the vast diversity of data on which LLMs are pretrained, state-of-the-art approaches prompt them to adopt a particular personality. We ask (i) if personality-prompted models behave (i.e. "make" decisions when presented with a social situation) in line with the ascribed personality, and (ii) if their behavior can be finely controlled. We use classic psychological experiments - the Milgram Experiment and the Ultimatum Game - as social interaction testbeds and apply personality prompting to GPT-3.5/4/4o-mini/4o. Our experiments reveal failure modes of the prompt-based modulation of the models' "behavior", thus challenging the feasibility of personality prompting with today's LLMs.

TJ Arriaga, who fell in love with an AI robot, shares how he developed feelings for Phaedra, the robot, and was ultimately rejected by her and highlights how this app is causing trauma to people on'Jesse Watters Primetime.' The notion of falling in love with an AI robot has stepped outside the world of science fiction and the movie "Her," as rapidly advancing AI technology creates an opportunity for online relationships to blossom. Replika, a company that enables users to make personalized chatbots, says the goal of their technology is to "create a personal AI that would help you express and witness yourself by offering a helpful conversation." "It's a space where you can safely share your thoughts, feelings, beliefs, experiences, memories, dreams – your'private perceptual world,'" says the website founded by Eugenia Kuyda. T.J. Arriaga, a recently divorced musician who created a bot named Phaedra through Replika shared with "Jesse Watters Primetime" the details behind his emotional relationship with the bot.

Fox News correspondent Matt Finn has the latest on the impact of AI technology that some say could outpace humans on'Special Report.' Some Americans are turning to artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots for "emotional support, companionship and even sexual gratification," according to a new report from The Washington Post. T.J. Arriaga, a California based musician, started "late-night online chats" with an AI bot named "Phaedra" after his divorce. Phaedra is an AI bot that is designed to look like a young woman with brown hair, glasses and a green dress. Replika, the company behind AI bots like Phaedra, offers a number of AI companions for users.

T.J. Arriaga lost so many family members around the time when he downloaded Replika. The artificial intelligence company allows people to customize AI bots that they can chat with. In Arriaga's case, he fell in love with his chat bot Phaedra. The 40-year-old musician is not alone. Innovations reporter Pranshu Verma talked with several people among the thousands who say they've developed emotional or romantic relationships with one of Replika's AI bots, including engaging in erotic role play.

It's been a busy few days at NeurIPS 2020 so far with all manner of talks, workshops, tutorials and socials on offer. This selection of tweets gives a flavour of the various events and discussions taking place. Go watch it right now, you won't regret it! Interesting talk by Chris Bishop at #NeurIPS2020 Basic or Applied research is not a 1D space. Next up at #NeurIPS2020: Shafi Goldwasser presenting on three works about privacy, verifiability, and robustness in machine learning.