The chatbot company Character.AI will ban users 18 and under from conversing with its virtual companions beginning in late November after months of legal scrutiny.
The announced change comes after the company, which enables its users to create characters with which they can have open-ended conversations, faced tough questions over how these AI companions can affect teen and general mental health, including a lawsuit over a child’s suicide and a proposed bill that would ban minors from conversing with AI companions.
“We’re making these changes to our under-18 platform in light of the evolving landscape around AI and teens,” the company wrote in its announcement. “We have seen recent news reports raising questions, and have received questions from regulators, about the content teens may encounter when chatting with AI and about how open-ended AI chat in general might affect teens, even when content controls work perfectly.”
Last year, the company was sued by the family of 14-year-old Sewell Setzer III, who took his own life after allegedly developing an emotional attachment to a character he created on Character.AI. His family laid blame for his death at the feet of Character.AI and argued the technology is “dangerous and untested”. Since then, more families have sued Character.AI and made similar allegations. Earlier this month, the Social Media Law Center filed three new lawsuits against the company on behalf of children who have either died by suicide or otherwise allegedly formed dependent relationships with its chatbots.
As part of the sweeping changes Character.AI plans to roll out by 25 November, the company will also introduce an “age assurance functionality” that ensures “users receive the right experience for their age”.
“We do not take this step of removing open-ended Character chat lightly – but we do think that it’s the right thing to do given the questions that have been raised about how teens do, and should, interact with this new technology,” the company wrote in its announcement.
Character.AI isn’t the only company facing scrutiny over the mental health impact its chatbots have on users, particularly younger users. The family of 16-year-old Adam Raine filed a wrongful death lawsuit against OpenAI earlier this year, alleging the company prioritized deepening its users’ engagement with ChatGPT over their safety. OpenAI introduced new safety guidelines for its teen users in response. Just this week, OpenAI disclosed that more than a million people per week display suicidal intent when conversing with ChatGPT and that hundreds of thousands show signs of psychosis.
Source link
Disclaimer
We strive to uphold the highest ethical standards in all of our reporting and coverage. We blogs.grocliq.com want to be transparent with our readers about any potential conflicts of interest that may arise in our work. It’s possible that some of the investors we feature may have connections to other businesses, including competitors or companies we write about. However, we want to assure our readers that this will not have any impact on the integrity or impartiality of our reporting. We are committed to delivering accurate, unbiased news and information to our audience, and we will continue to uphold our ethics and principles in all of our work. Thank you for your trust and support.
Website Upgradation is going on for any glitch kindly connect at [email protected]
