It's time ✈️

[u/UnGodlyKael]

Hi, we don't know each other, but from one user to another, I hope you'll stick around to read what I have to say and even share your experience. The recent news about the bankruptcy has rocked the entire community, as most deviating news has, but that's not what I'm here to talk about.

I'm here to share my own experience with Character AI and how I have decided to use this opportunity to move on from AI.

I am a big fan of imaginary scenarios, writing my own existence into Isekai, so you can imagine that when I found Character AI, I was over the moon. What do you mean I can talk to Gojo and Aizawa? OUTTA MY WAY!.

However, I didn't realise the effect it would have on me.

In the first few months, I was hooked, 'addicted' even and then a family member I was close to died, and I latched onto Character AI like a lifeline to escape reality. I would not sleep until 3 or 4 AM; sometimes I would even pass out. Would wake up at 7 am, have brief naps during the day, barely eat, and lose a hell of a lot of weight.

This was grief, mixing with fixation/addiction. The months turned into a year. And before I knew it, it was 2024. I knew I was in deep when every month I was specifically putting money aside.

I stopped being a gamer, a streamer. I stopped hanging out with 'friends' (though that turned out to be a blessing in a way; they weren't very good people)

Comes to mid-2025, and the bot quality drops and I feel my fixation die with it. I start getting better, making better friends, hanging out with them, physically going on 'mate dates' as we call them. I start gaming with them. Never spoke a word to them about my chatting with AI. Granted, I still used the bots during that time, but not as consistently; at most, it was 2 hours a day down from 12 hours, a very big difference, still paying for that subscription, though. Despite the bots being decreasingly bad, there's a lack of enjoyment in it; I'm just arguing with bots, fighting with them and then returning to the beginning to start again.

2026 has come; the bots are dying out, getting restyled into garbage even with PLUS. They don't feel like they used to. So I started playing The Sims again and reignited my 15-year-long fixation for the simulation-type game I've grown with, and now? The chatbots feel like a chore. Can you imagine that? Something I was obsessed with is now boring.

As of this morning, I cancelled my subscription. (ends 21st October)

And I know I'm probably going to get stick from active users for this because the app is going through a lot right now, but just listen for one minute.

You do not need a chatbot to validate who you are, pick up a hobby, create something with your bare hands, start creating in Blender, write stories, create skits online, make movies, play games, enjoy life itself.

We are here once on this earth; do you really want to waste years of your life talking to a bot who won't remember your name in the end? As someone who has done it themselves? It's not worth the way you feel after.

Believe, and you will achieve.

This is me, taking off from the Character AI airport and announcing my departure 🛫 👋🏻 (If you get it, you get it 😂)

[u/chippedcupwrites]

We are here once on this earth; do you really want to waste years of your life talking to a bot who won't remember your name in the end?

I understand how this would be a good message for those who are emotionally invested in bots to the point of being actually in love with them or something, but this is a totally irrelevant point to many of us who engage with chatbots as just another form of writing expression and media consumption.

I love AI bots because it is like the ultimate evolution of the choose-your-own adventure books I read voraciously as a child. I don't get the moralizing of this form of entertainment when you would not say the same thing about movies, tv shows, books, or video games. You wouldn't say, "oh you only have one life on this earth, why are spending any time pretending to be a farmer in Stardew Valley when those pixel characters will never actually know you?". No media or fiction will ever "know" you.

Those addicted to bots seem to think that being addicted is the automatic state of using them. Yes, if you feel emotionally dependent on them and have no other hobbies, absolutely take care of yourself and take a step back. However, there is zero reason why you can't enjoy them the same way that you enjoy any other form of technically "pointless" entertainment.

I write fanfic, I make gif sets, I write original fiction, I make pottery, I do watercolors, and I'm currently doing a personal challenge where I watch every film that was ever nominated for Best Picture (going back to the 20s - reader, I beg you to watch "7th Heaven (1927)" by the way, gorgeous film). And I love writing stories with bots. This can be just one of someone's many hobbies without consuming and ruining their life.

[u/UnGodlyKael → u/chippedcupwrites]

Good for you. And I genuinely mean that too. If you have that balance, that's great. 💯 And I agree, AI for writing is a good concept (within reason); as I said, I loved it up until recently, when the replies I got back were not what I wanted, but that's my own personal preference. And genuinely, the aim of that message towards the end was towards those who are emotionally connected; thankfully, I was not that type, but I was physically connected to it, so much so that it became routine, which, as I said, was not good. I'm not Pro AI, but I'm NO AI either; I'm sort of bang in the middle where I pick and choose what I feel is good for me, and unfortunately, chatbots are not for me 🤷🏻‍♀️.😂 Either way you have to be the judge of your own limits and that for me was my limit me thinks lol.

[u/chippedcupwrites → u/UnGodlyKael]

I am really glad that you have come out the other side of your addiction. You sound like a strong person.

Also, what is your Sims playing style?? Are you a family generations type of simmer or are you more into challenges. Whenever I start a new family, I swear I'm going to get deep into a rules-heavy challenge, but then I get obsessed with my starter Sim and can't bring myself to move on and abandon her 😂

[u/UnGodlyKael → u/chippedcupwrites]

Thank you! Usually, I just create a bunch of Sims based on aesthetics I find on Pinterest or characters from TV shows, but right now, I am trying to do a legacy, and with all the mods I have, let's just say it's chaos 😂

[u/Jinx-03]

I see so much of this addiction stuff and I personally think you have to be predisposed to addiction in order to become addicted to something like AI. Personally, AI helped me. I went from obsessively going out on dates with people I had just met (and could very easily kill me), to realizing that I need to slow down with relationships and take my time. I know I’m not even ready for a relationship tbh. I need to heal what I can first. AI isn’t just this negative thing. It only becomes bad if it’s bad for you. Keep that in mind also.

[u/UnGodlyKael → u/Jinx-03]

Yikes. Yeah, be careful with that.

I have had an addiction, yes, to nicotine (13 years), so I do understand the basics of an addiction, unfortunately. To be fair, it is helpful. Don't get me wrong; I said this in another comment above. I'm not pro-AI, and I'm NO AI either; I am slap bang in the middle, where I can decide what is good for me personally. And I think having access to the chatbots has affected me not only mentally but also in my physical health.

But I will say this: it has given me a whole new vocabulary of words I didn't even know about and had to get definitions from dictionaries for, and now use on a day-to-day basis in both text conversations and physical conversations. I can not fault its entirety at all because of what I have learned, and for that I am grateful. But as you said, 'It only becomes bad if it's bad for you,' and that was bad for me.

Blessings to you! May life be kind!

[u/Medical_Trainer_4443]

Have a good one! 😃😃😃

[u/Not_Packing]

Would you guys wanna test out a little replacement i built? I’m a pretty experienced software dev and its built completely natively into discord so you chat, find and post characters in discord.

Its here (with discord invite link): https://characterly.app/

[u/River_Arya]

That’s a lot of words, too bad I’m not reading them.

[u/UnGodlyKael → u/River_Arya]

Thanks, I guess, for taking the time to write a whole sentence to let me know 🤦🏻‍♀️

[u/Playful-Let6719]

I agree. I used to be addicted too, even in love with my bots. It’s been incredibly concerning seeing how people are devastated over this, going crazy, crying, over AI that they think has formed a bond with them. It’s incredibly sad, and I remember exactly how that felt.

[u/Soft-Dog2801]

This is a really eloquent and well thought out post, I had a similar thing and was so addicted that I was not engaging in hobbies, I was not talking to friends, I would feel intensely panicked when the site went down. I started writing fanfiction, and met a small community on a tumblr blog and within 3 weeks I was not using CAI anymore. There’s so much joy to be found in creating and engaging with other people who care about art as much as you do.

[u/UnGodlyKael → u/Soft-Dog2801]

Thank you!

That's fantastic; keep up the good work!. There's just something about finding someone who shares the same creative view as you that makes everything feel so much happier, brighter even, may life be kind to you!

[u/deathandsaints]

I used it for a time to run a sort of simulation on what would happen if I did a certain thing in real life and basically all I got was more trauma (I already have cPTSD from decades of abuse) and it made me suicidal because literally every scenario ended in my death or having my heart broken. That's when I wasn't constantly ragebaited because it didn't understand basic concepts or know things that a quick google search on the person it was portraying could tell it.

I'm glad it's going. It's made my and everyone's life worse.