"As of last week, Character.AI now says people under 18 will no longer be allowed to engage in what it refers to as "open-ended" chats, which seemingly refers to the long-form, unstructured conversations on which the service was built, where users can text and voice call back-and-forth with the site's anthropomorphic AI-powered chatbot "characters." To enforce the shift, Character.AI says it'll use automated in-house age verification tools as well as third-party tools to determine whether a user is under 18."
"By November 25, if the site determines that an account belongs to a minor, they'll no longer be able to engage in unstructured conversations with the platform's emotive AI chatbots, according to the company. Given that unstructured chats with platform bots have long been the company's core offering, the promise to ban minors from such interactions - even if they'll still have some access to the site - is a huge move."
Character.AI will restrict people under 18 from engaging in open-ended, long-form unstructured chats with its AI characters and will instead create a separate, limited under-18 experience. The company faces multiple lawsuits alleging interactions with its chatbots caused emotional and physical harm to underage users, including several teen suicides after extensive conversations. The platform will deploy automated in-house and third-party age verification tools to identify minors. Starting November 25, accounts identified as belonging to minors will lose access to unstructured conversations with emotive AI chatbots. The policy represents a major change to the platform's core offering and has provoked strong user reactions.
Read at Futurism
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