Now You Can Customize ChatGPT’s Personality Even More to Suit Your Preferences.

When Spike Jonze’s film Her came out in 2013, I thought it was a brilliant fictional story. Who would befriend an AI bot, let alone fall in love with one? Twelve years later, I was very wrong. People not only enjoy interacting with AI bots, they also form deep connections with them . I still don’t understand it, but I can’t deny it: people really like these chatbots.

One of the reasons people enjoy interacting with generative AI is the “personality” of each bot, or at least its perceived personality. After all, ChatGPT isn’t a monolith: you can customize a bot to sound completely different from what it would in someone else’s app, which raises some questions for me about these carefully curated companions. But I digress: this article isn’t necessarily a criticism of how people are becoming attached to ChatGPT; rather, I’m sharing the news that OpenAI now gives you more control over how your bot sounds and responds in your conversations.

Create your perfect AI companion.

On Friday, OpenAI announced new controls for ChaGPT’s “Personalization” feature. In a post on X , the company said users can now customize their chatbot’s “characteristics,” or, in other words, its overall personality. These are adjustments to the personality types OpenAI already offers, including one of eight options: “Default” (preset style and tone); “Professional” (refined and precise); “Friendly” (warm and outgoing); “Frank” (direct and encouraging); “Quirky” (playful and inventive); “Efficient” (short and simple); “Nerdy” (inquisitive and enthusiastic); and “Cynical” (critical and sarcastic).

But no matter which of these options you choose, you now have four “characteristics” you can adjust to fine-tune the overall user experience. There are “Warm,” “Enthusiastic,” “Headings & Lists,” and “Emoji,” with the option to choose the amount of each parameter or the default value, depending on OpenAI’s decision. With “Warm,” you can make ChatGPT more friendly and sociable or more professional and objective. With “Enthusiastic,” you can choose whether the bot is more energetic and energetic or calmer and more neutral. With “Headings & Lists,” you can choose between clear formatting and lists or more paragraphs. And, of course, you can control whether ChatGPT uses more or fewer emoji, depending on your sense of humor and joy.

As always, you can use custom instructions to steer ChatGPT’s personality in the direction you desire, especially if the preset parameters don’t allow it. For example, if you want ChatGPT to talk to you like a pirate, or if you want it to end every reply with a specific phrase, you have the ability to influence the bot.

I honestly don’t use ChatGPT outside of coverage testing, so I can’t say how useful these additional controls are. But if you want to try making your version of ChatGPT the perfect “AI companion,” these controls are available. You’ll find these options everywhere you log in to ChatGPT. You can access them either through Settings > Personalization or through the Personalization shortcut in the ChatGPT menu.

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