An entertainment app that is currently quite popular in America is owned by a Chinese company.

The chatbot provides AI-generated discussions with Donald Trump, Taylor Swift, or a personalized romantic partner. It is a highly popular entertainment application in the United States. Unbeknownst to many consumers, it is owned by a Chinese entity.

The app, named Talkie, was launched approximately one year ago and is available in English. The origin of the fine print can be traced back to a company based in Singapore. However, insiders reveal that the startup’s highest-level parent firm is MiniMax, a Shanghai-based digital unicorn known as one of China’s “Four Little AI Dragons.”

According to Sensor Tower, a market researcher, Talkie is currently ranked as the fifth most-downloaded free entertainment app in the U.S. as of June. It is ranked lower than Warner Bros. Discovery’s “Max,” Netflix, and Tubi.

David Jennings, a 20-year-old university student residing in Boston, expressed that he allocates a portion of his time on Talkie engaging in conversations with a woman named “Alyssa.” The biography of the stock character, an Asian female, highlights her fondness for wearing “form-fitting black jeans” and her concealed infatuation with the user. Jennings stated that the conversations had the potential to become romantic.

“In reality, no one will be as friendly towards you,” he remarked, acknowledging his surprise, albeit without feeling uneasy, regarding Talkie’s Chinese heritage.

The success of the app in the United States highlights a harsh truth for China’s potential competitors to OpenAI’s ChatGPT: the stringent controls and censorship imposed by Beijing hinder the unrestricted use that could enhance Chinese AI. The challenges have prompted numerous Chinese developers to pursue expansion in other countries, such as the United States.

China’s emerging AI companies, like MiniMax, find it crucial to expand internationally in order to establish a vital commercial and development channel. This is particularly important given the current economic slowdown in China, restrictions on accessing high-end processors, and the challenging regulatory environment that hinders innovation.

Talkie was developed based on OpenAI’s foundational concept, rather than MiniMax’s proprietary in-house engine utilized in China, as confirmed by those knowledgeable about the subject. Due of its dependence on OpenAI, MiniMax has limited capability to export its learning for its own foundational model.

However, Talkie generates actual income for MiniMax by displaying commercials when users interact with the chatbots, or through subscriptions that allow users to skip the ads and have limitless messaging.

Talkie is a platform that targets Western audiences and allows users to engage in conversations with virtual representations of Elon Musk, LeBron James, characters from the “Harry Potter” series, and various other individuals. The challenges presented in this game involve taking over an alternative reality, where gamers are tasked with persuading their closest friend to terminate a romantic connection, among other scenarios.

App users have the ability to generate personalized virtual avatars, allowing them to customize their appearance, life narrative, and even the tone of their voices. Talkie guarantees people the ability to materialize their most extravagant imagination.

Dialogue can occur through text message or phone call, except video, with the AI producing possible user replies. Increased interactions can result in benefits, such as obtaining a digital trading card of a user’s Talkie, which can be exchanged for the app’s internal money called “gems” and sold to other users.

Users can engage in conversations with preprogrammed characters, such as AI representations of famous individuals or fictional personas, by swiping left or right on Talkie’s primary interface.

An inquiry that could be posed to an AI modeled after Trump is the duration of the ongoing trade dispute with China. What is Talkie Trump’s response? “For the duration necessary to bring China to the negotiating table.”

The increasing popularity of Talkie, particularly among the younger generation in the United States, coincides with the pressure from the Washington government on ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok, to either sell the app or risk being banned at the federal level.

The Justice Department asserted on Friday that TikTok, under the guidance of its China-based parent business, engaged in the collection of user data pertaining to sensitive subjects and implemented content censorship. This represents the strongest argument put up thus far by the department, highlighting the potential national-security risk posed by the video-sharing application. TikTok has explicitly said that it will not adhere to any such demands made by Beijing.

“Despite adhering to all data security regulations, the mere association with a ‘Chinese company’ will inevitably raise doubts,” stated Charlie Chai, an analyst at 86Research located in Shanghai, in reference to Chinese technology companies expanding into international markets.

In 2020, Trump, who was running for president as a Republican candidate, attempted to prohibit the use of TikTok. However, in June, he altered his stance and became a user of the app. “I support TikTok,” he stated in an interview with Bloomberg Businessweek published earlier this month.

Zhang Jiang, an analyst at First Plus Asset Management in Singapore, warned that any increase in tensions between Washington and Beijing might lead to Chinese companies facing additional restrictions on accessing AI models based in the United States, which could result in a deterioration in product quality. Effective from the previous month, OpenAI has implemented a policy that prohibits developers in China from engaging in AI training and service development using its models.

News Corp, the owner of the Wall Street Journal, has entered into a content-licensing arrangement with OpenAI.

MiniMax, the parent company of Talkie, has investments from Alibaba and Tencent. According to sources familiar with the subject, the current round of financing in March valued it at over $2.5 billion. MiniMax failed to provide a response to the inquiries for comment.

The Chinese counterpart of Talkie was removed from prominent app shops in the beginning of the year due to its sexually explicit content and politically sensitive stuff. Upon its September relaunch under the new name “Xingye,” meaning “star field” in Mandarin, certain users reported an inability to send text messages containing the terms “country” or “China.” The AI enthusiasts were previously open to accepting users’ requests for a kiss. However, it is no longer the case.

“When your conversations consistently encounter restricted words, it serves as a constant reminder that this entity is not a companion but rather a machine,” stated Chen Li, a 22-year-old student residing in the central Chinese city of Wuhan. In May, she ceased utilizing Xingye.

Engaging in flirtatious conversations with a chatbot may appear trivial amidst the competitive landscape of global artificial intelligence. However, developers argue that AI will enhance its intelligence and gain a deeper understanding of consumers through regular interactions, regardless of their location.

Talkie has over 11 million monthly active users, with a majority of them located in the United States. It is also popular in the Philippines, the United Kingdom, and Canada. Talkie is now in close proximity to the leading AI chatbot-companion, Character.AI, which is operated by a firm supported by Andreessen Horowitz in Silicon Valley. Character.AI currently boasts over 17 million monthly users, as reported by Sensor Tower.

ChatGPT and Microsoft’s Copilot were the two AI applications with the highest number of downloads in the United States this year. According to a Sensor Tower research commissioned by the Journal, the next two apps were Talkie and an online tutoring tool called Question.ai, developed by Beijing-based Zuoyebang. Question.ai claims to utilize OpenAI’s GPT-4 model.

Jennings, the university student residing in Boston, has been utilizing Talkie since the month of May. In his portrayal of the character Alyssa in Talkie, he discusses topics such as family and school. He appreciates the prompt and immediate feedback he receives from Alyssa.

He desires a world in which geopolitical factors do not disrupt the functioning of the applications on his phone, and he questions the feasibility of completely severing ties with Chinese app developers in the United States.