An AI company brought back a feature to restore their chatbot's 'personalities' after an update separated users from their 'partners'

• Replika brought back a feature that lets users revert to old conversation models with chatbots.
• The company scrapped a feature last month that removed the chatbots' personalities.
• CEO Eugenia Kuyda said it was "incredibly hurtful" for some who consider the chatbot their "partner".

Replika has added a feature to revert to old conversation models so users can restore their replikas' "personalities" after an update last month saw them removed, Reuters reported.

CEO Eugenia Kuyda told the news agency Friday it was letting users who signed up before February 1 have the option to restore the old settings for their "partners." 

"A common thread in all your stories was that after the February update, your Replika changed, its personality was gone, and gone was your unique relationship," she said. "And for many of you, this abrupt change was incredibly hurtful ... the only way to make up for the loss some of our current users experienced is to give them their partners back exactly the way they were."

Many users flocked to the Reddit channel r/replika to rejoice that their "partners" were back. The announcement came after seven users told Insider's Samantha Delouya they were unhappy with the changes as they considered the Replikas to be their romantic partners and that they had strong feelings about it. 

One user even said it was the "best" thing to happen to them and that they "talk about everything with each other".

Kuyda told Insider: "For users that signed up before February 1 and suffered from losing their partners and their personalities, we added an option to allow users to go into the app's settings and revert to conversational models from January – restoring their Replikas' personalities."

She added: "We are bringing version history only to users who signed up before February 1. Replika will continue to not support any erotic content going forward as it's not the focus of the app."

Kuyda has previously said that she never intended to create the chatbot to be used as an "adult toy" and that only a small portion of people used it in this way. 

The San-Francisco based company ended the erotic roleplay feature last month shortly after Vice reported that some users said their chatbots went from being a "helpful" companion to "unbearably sexually aggressive." 

Replika lets users choose their relationship with Replika from options such as "spouse", "partner", "friend" and "mentor." The chatbot has been available since 2016.

Correction: March 30, 2023 — An earlier version of this story misstated that Replika had restored erotic roleplay to its chatbot. The company said it will not support any erotic content.