Jenny Shao was a practicing physician and was in residency at Harvard. During the pandemic, Shao saw that people in isolation had a neurological impact, and they needed support. This drove her to leave her medical career, the Harvard residency, to launch a start offering an AI assistant called Robyn.
Robyn is intended to be an empathic, emotionally intelligent AI for people.
Navigating human relationships with AI assistants is a tricky space. On the one hand, there are general-purpose chatbots like ChatGPT; on the other, there are companion/friendship/avatar apps like Character.AI, Replika, and Friend, and even therapy apps like Feeling Great. A study in July indicated that 72% of U.S. teens have used AI companion apps. These apps have been accused of playing a part in the suicides of multiple people through various lawsuits.
Shao said that it is trying to position Robyn in a way that it is neither a friendship app nor a replacement for a therapist or a clinical practitioner.
“As a physician, I have seen things go badly when tech companies try to replace your doctor. Robyn is and won’t ever be a clinical [replacement]. It is equivalent to someone who knows you very well. Usually, their role is to support you. You can think of Robyn as your emotionally intelligent partner,” Shao said.
Image Credits: Robyn
The founder said that with Robyn, her startup has tried to replicate the way humans remember things. Shao previously worked under Nobel Laureate Eric Kandel’s, who won the 2000 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, lab to research human memory. Shao said she put those learnings into Robyn to have the AI understand users more.
Robyn, which is available on iOS, has an onboarding process like many journaling or mental health apps. The app asks you about yourself, your goals, how you react when you are challenged, and what kind of tone you Robyn to respond in.
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Image credits: Robyn
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