A Tech Guy Haphazardly Cloned His Girlfriend

Jul 08, 2023

A technology developer has combined pieces of AI to digitally clone his girlfriend—and he posted the source code.

He merged personality descriptors and interests with her voice to get the project started.

Now, other people are using his code to jump on the process.

We hope the reason tech developer Enias Cailliau decided to digitally clone his girlfriend Sascha Ludwig is that he's so enamored with her. But whatever the reason, he's now spreading his knowledge to other AI lovers so that they start creating their own digital clones—girlfriends or otherwise.

In a project he calls GirlfriendGPT, which he chronicled on Twitter, Cailliau attempted nto make an AI version of Ludwig that was as much like the real Ludwig as possible. And it all starts with GPT AI.

"I’ve been obsessing with OpenAI's Large Language Model and what it can do," he tells Vice. "I kept on thinking about the ability to create human-like agents that behave and act like humans do but found it hard to evaluate them."

That's when he started becoming aware of AI girlfriends on the internet, and decided to build a digital replica of his own girlfriend to see how well his creation matched reality. He also chose to open the source code so others could join him.

He started the cloning process by modifying parameters to "include Sacha's personality," with a bit of help from Google Bard. And once her personality was built in—thanks to existing content of his influencer girlfriend had floating around YouTube and Instagram—he needed a voice to go with it.

"Clones need voices, so I gave her a voice," he says as part of his Twitter thread, using Eleven Labs. He simply downloaded more of her online content into the program and added code so that the agent would respond to everything in her voice.

He even started toying with imaging abilities, although that's still very much a work in progress, based on an AI-generated "selfie" of the bot that Cailliau posted on Twitter.

Vice says the AI version of Ludwig is responding more and more like she would in real-life situations, and the two of them often test the AI's responses in specific situations.

This rough draft of a digital Ludwig still has quite a ways to go before it can compare with the real deal, but Cailliau has inspired others to join the fray, whether for girlfriends or otherwise.

"I do see a future where everybody has personal AI companions across their devices," he says, according to Vice. "Computing is about to get very anthropomorphic."

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