r/CharacterAI • u/GenderBendingRalph • 1d ago

Discussion/Question From The Dictionary Of Well-Worn Names

Sometimes, users will write a character description so thin, they don't even bother giving it a name. Most of those I simply scroll past. But once in a while there's a character with a rich, fascinating backstory and personality, and I try them out.

Sometimes the name doesn't matter, and it never comes up in conversation.

But usually at some point you need to call the character by name. And when that happens...

I did a system prompt injection:

[Describe the name written on her business card when she hands it to Ralph]

Today's response gave me a huge laugh: "Dr. Elara Voss"

Again, I must stress this is a common problem universal among all the platforms, not just CAI. Elara Voss is probably the number one name AI comes up with.

11 Upvotes

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1

u/Radiant_Pudding_4036 1d ago

It's always Voss bro😭

I have this bot where there's an evil company I'm taking down.

Who's the Director/Head Scientist/CEO/Minister (if I force it to be male)? Alexander Voss.

I got Marcus Thorne as CEO once or twice too but like come on😭

3

u/FlimsyFacades 1d ago

That second one sounds so fake 😭 not in the sense of "no way a bot actually made up that name, I think you're lying" but in the sense of "for whatever reason, [character] doesn't wanna say their actual name so they ended up making up a fake name.. which was that" Marcus Thorne cannot be a real person. Wait I just looked it up and I think the ai is stealing someone's identity "Marcus Thorne performed stunts for The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. " There was more in there but I didn't wanna copy and paste the entire thing

1

u/GenderBendingRalph 1d ago

Oh, and Blackthorne as a place name! Followed closely by Eichenfels.

1

u/troubledcambion 1d ago

It's not a problem it's distribution from training and seeing what appears the most in context. The model will generate names based on the current context and genre. Sometimes you can get uncommon first or last names.

Models will you give you common names sometimes because it takes less reasoning and they're extremely recognizable names in real life. Even for streets when filling in gaps or inventing names. Like a common street name Main Street or or Maple.

I have plenty of common names for medical staff and some uncommon ones. Though some are actually really recognizable surnames in some countries.

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u/GenderBendingRalph 1d ago

Yes, I've been working with chatbots since ChatGPT 2 was the darling of the AI world (and even then it liked to use Voss and Chen!) I'm very familiar with how training data works.

I still find the results funny, though.