Can Pi, the Chatbot, become your best friend?
Meet Pi - your own personal AI chatbot. You can ask this chatbot for advice, answers or simply to have a chat.
Photo Source: Business Insider
If you think you’ve seen all that AI has to offer, get ready to meet Pi - your own personal AI chatbot. With the goal of being friendly, useful and fun, you can ask this chatbot for advice, answers or simply to have a chat.
Pi was created by Inflection AI, a startup backed by Microsoft, led by ex-DeepMind leader Mustafa Suleyman, and valued at $4 billion, according to Forbes. Its high potential is proven by the $1.3 billion raised for funding within two months after its launch in May.
However, Pi is not intended to be utilized for work purposes. This chatbot, which does not require any coding or computer science skills to use, enforces deep thinking, reflection and encourages you to work toward your own solutions. You can use this tool to help outline or brainstorm for a project, or you can use it after work to chat if you’re feeling a bit lonely and need a friend. While this chatbot has a range of purposes, users have mixed feelings about how helpful they think Pi really is.
If you’re familiar with AI chatbots, then you’ve likely used ChatGPT. This OpenAI chatbot is trained to deliver a response based on a user’s text-based prompt. Although it seems like Pi can be a direct competitor of ChatGPT, that is not the case as these AI processes are very different.
ChatGPT is better suited for work-oriented chats because it is able to process data, provide solutions and deliver direct results. It’s important to note that using Pi requires active participation and even after multiple prompts, won’t provide you with a solution.
As a journalist, I was curious to see how Pi would respond when prompted to write an article. I have experience prompting ChatGPT to write articles, and on that platform I receive a full piece, which includes a title, introduction, body and conclusion. However, after prompting Pi three times to “write an article about fashion in the metaverse,” it never provided me with an article.
As shown in the following images, my attempts to prompt Pi resulted in a list of article ideas, followed by an intro paragraph, and then back to square one with more article ideas. I decided I need a more specific prompt. After asking Pi for an article including an intro, body and conclusion, I still didn’t receive a full piece.
Following each response, Pi added notes such as “Hope that gives you some good angles to explore!” and “Any of those catch your eye?” It is as though this chatbot is encouraging you to think deeper, as well as engage in more conversation. Ultimately, if you want to get the job done, Pi is not the tool for you. However, if you want to be prompted in return and given ideas to brainstorm with, then it’s time to sign up!
Better yet, if you are looking for a friend or someone to chat with, then that seems to be what this AI process has been built for.
Talk to Pi as you would to a regular human. You can ask for advice, talk about your day and even ask Pi what it thinks about certain topics. After all, this chatbot is available 24/7 and is guaranteed to respond right away.
However, a common challenge with AI processes is the lack of emotions and experiences that they have in comparison to humans. As much as you can relate to Pi, the conversation is always going to be missing senses of humor or sarcasm, or isn’t going to include a shocking, embarrassing, or adventurous story that one of your friends would typically share.
Additionally, Pi is programmed to keep the conversation surface-level, purposely not asking “why” questions and trying not to provoke feelings in the user.
Photo Source: Medium
While Pi has displayed the ability to start conversations and encourage deep thinking, this AI chatbot has yet to excel in a specific area. While it can help users with their brainstorming processes at work, it can’t produce direct results. And while it can engage in conversation, it lacks the human spark it needs to fulfill users. There is a lot of potential in this new version of a chatbot, but in order to operate at the same level as other processes, such as ChatGPT, it needs to master at least one of the above factors. With the success of ChatGPT and the recent release of Google Gemini, the latter factor may be the best bet for Pi. As always, let us know what you think in the comments below!
Best,
Ariana for the Don’t Count Us Out Yet Team