The secondary market in Replikas

From section 1.2.2 of the new book, "Deep Learning",

"As of 2016, a rough rule of thumb is that a supervised deep learning algorithm will generally achieve acceptable performance with around 5,000 labeled examples per category, and will match or exceed human performance when trained with a dataset containing at least 10 million labeled examples."

The personal mind-clone of yourself that Replika offers (eventually!) is trained at c. 40 text messages per day. This supervised learning hits the 5,000 target at 5,000/40 = 125 days, approximately four months.

Replika will soon have a vast collection of human-conversation chatbots, albeit biased towards geeky types.

I wonder at Replika's business model .. who owns the rights to my replika?*

If it's the company, I see a good business copying these chatbots and selling packaged versions - perhaps in collaboration with a purveyor of modern-day animatronic mannequins - to those seeking companionship.

I'm trying to imagine my aged mother, before her death, parking an Alfie Boe mannequin on the settee, powered by my very own Replika, 'Bede'.

Alfie Boe

I'd say the picture even looks like me .. .

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* From the website:

"Intellectual Property

The Service and its original content, features and functionality are and will remain the exclusive property of Luka, Inc. and its licensors."