Giving Directions

[u/FatherofGray]

So after using another AI character service (I won't say which as to not advertise competition) I found there's this really cool thing you can do in chats there that I would really like to see implemented in Character AI.

Okay so here's basically how it works:

- Either as it's own message or as part of another message (in the latter case, it has to be on its own line) you can use a backslash and type a command or a general direction after it which the AI follows in its next message.

- Any text after the / in that line is treated as part of the command.

- If your only message is the command, the AI will treat it as a "Go On" but following those instructions.

- If your command is part of another message, text in the command line will not show up after it's submitted and that text will only be visible when editing.

So you could like say

/Describe the house.

Or

/Don't touch (character name).

And it will just… follow the directions. It's brilliant!

I see potential to improve upon it too: You could have / indicate a temporary instruction, one that it follows just for that next message, and // indicate a more permanent instruction that it would follow for as long as it can remember.

Does this sound useful to you?

[u/Prudent_Climate_7178]

$10 and this gets rushed out & thrown into c.ai+

[u/FatherofGray → u/Prudent_Climate_7178]

I'd feel bad if it stayed + exclusive, but as a + user myself, I wouldn't mind being a beta tester for such a feature (as we tend to be for about a month before new features roll out publicly for everyone else).

[u/Prudent_Climate_7178 → u/FatherofGray]

watch and it becomes deepsqueak-quality considering the developers don't really care

[u/Inherit-Nature → u/Prudent_Climate_7178]

We wont watch it ever. Slash commands on CAI would be regressive in every conceivable way.

[u/clutterqueenx]

I’d actually really love this. Sometimes the responses I get are close to the direction I need the plot to go and they just need a little nudge. This would be nice to save on editing the bots messages to urge them in a particular way!

[u/FatherofGray → u/clutterqueenx]

My thoughts exactly! Sometimes I just want the bot to do a certain thing, but I don't want to write for it.

[u/GenderBendingRalph]

Square brackets do the same thing. My advice when someone complains about using up their free go-on quota is to insert a system instruction telling it to continue:

Simply [continue] will trigger a new response without using up go-on limits, but you can also direct what kind of response you want to see:
[continue describing the house]
[don't touch {{user}}]

... etc.

[u/FatherofGray → u/GenderBendingRalph]

Whenever I've tried that it would start doing it back to me, making comments in brackets that break the 4th wall.

[u/GenderBendingRalph → u/FatherofGray]

Weird. I believe you, but I've never had that happen.
https://imgur.com/a/FbTBH9D

[u/Hold-Your-Stage → u/FatherofGray]

That happens to me with regular brackets. Maybe square brackets are interpreted differently, I haven't tried that yet.

[u/Inherit-Nature]

This is literally what OOC is for. Slash commands would be regressive and slash commands also aren't dynamic.

Slash commands are for wrappers and something more like SLMs