Why I believe the mobile app is now vibe-coded.
As a bit of a software developer, I know what's AI and what isn't. I get the feeling they've gotten rid of every human developer.
Case 1: all the text on the mobile app is clearly written by ChatGPT outside of AI chats and all the images in the same areas (including age verification) were 100% AI generated to the point where I even want the old login screen back.
Case 2: All original Character AI models that fit the platform are retired and replaced with PipSqueak. It speaks like ChatGPT to the extent that it feels as if ChatGPT was used to train the model. It has ChatGPT's levels of safety too somehow.
Case 3: The community guidelines are mostly written by AI (see https://policies.character.ai/community-guidelines). It uses too many em dashes which is what ChatGPT does most of the time.
I believe that it's vibe-coded. The app's original launch was definitely made by passionate people but now the app is too different like that. They made it so you can't use the older app versions anymore, and even if they bought back the old website it would just be the UI and still have the bad AI models.