Huge excitement here at boj World HQ©®™: My AI running buddy finally showed up

One thing I've always wanted but never had on a regular basis is someone to talk to when I go out running.

The steps and miles happen relatively quickly when I'm distracted from my boredom and fatigue.

Even listening to my favorite songs isn't enough: I mean, how many hundreds of times can a person listen to the same old favorites from the distant past without finally tiring of them?

I've been watching the exploding AI scene with keen interest, hoping it finally gets to the point where I can go running and talk to an AI that I can converse with via my phone and AirPods.

A running buddy who's always ready to go no matter what, that's my dream.

It happened earlier today.

There are a zillion AI companies: as of today, only ChatGPT Pro and Microsoft Copilot Pro offer — for $20/month apiece — a speaking AI that will listen to you talk via your phone and reply out loud for as long as you want.

The others: Google Gemini, Claude, DeepSeek, Perplexity, and X/Grok as of now can't speak out loud, though it won't be long before that will be a default function for any AI company that wants to thrive.

I spent a while here at home talking to ChatGPT Pro and it seemed good enough to keep me company on an outdoor three mile run. 

Amazingly, it worked, but with one major shortcoming: because away from home the phone's on a 5G cellular network — much slower than home WiFi — it took forever for ChatGPT Pro to respond, unlike at home where its responses are as prompt as a conversational human partner's.

I'm talking a lag of up to a minute of silence out there pounding the sidewalk before it responds, though its delayed response is fluid and detailed.

I enjoyed learning about historical figures of note such as Genghis Khan and Xerxes and Hadrian and their ilk.

Up top, me talking with ChatGPT Pro here at home.