{"id":6315,"date":"2025-10-29T16:42:43","date_gmt":"2025-10-29T16:42:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/character-ai-ban-minors\/"},"modified":"2025-10-29T16:42:43","modified_gmt":"2025-10-29T16:42:43","slug":"character-ai-ban-minors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/character-ai-ban-minors\/","title":{"rendered":"Character.AI, Accused of Driving Teens to Suicide, Says It Will Ban Minors From Using Its Chatbots"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Content warning: this story includes discussion of self-harm and suicide. If you are in crisis, please call, text or chat with the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988, or contact the Crisis Text Line by texting TALK to 741741.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Character.AI, the chatbot platform accused in several ongoing lawsuits of driving teens to self-harm and suicide, says it will move to block kids under 18<\/a> from using its services.<\/p>\n

The company announced the sweeping policy change in a blog post<\/a> today, in which it cited the \u201cevolving landscape around AI and teens\u201d as its reason for the shift. As for what this \u201cevolving landscape\u201d actually looks like, the company says it\u2019s \u201cseen recent news reports raising questions\u201d and has \u201creceived questions from regulators\u201d regarding the \u201ccontent 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nowhere in the blog post does Character.AI mention the multiple lawsuits<\/a> that specifically accuse the company, its founders, and its closely-tied financial benefactor Google of releasing a \u201creckless\u201d and \u201cnegligent\u201d product into the marketplace, allegedly resulting in the emotional and sexual abuse of minor users. The announcement also doesn\u2019t cite any internal safety research.<\/p>\n

Character.AI CEO Karandeep Anand, who took over as chief executive of the Andreessen-Horowitz-backed AI firm in June, told The New York Times<\/em><\/a> <\/em>that Character.AI is \u201cmaking a very bold step to say for teen users, chatbots are not the way for entertainment, but there are much better ways to serve them.\u201d Anand reportedly declined to comment on the ongoing lawsuits.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a jarring 180-degree<\/span> turn for Anand, given that the CEO told Wired<\/em> as recently as August of this year<\/a> that his six-year-old daughter loves to use the app, and that he felt the app\u2019s disclaimers were clear enough to prevent users from believing their relationship with the platform is anything deeper than \u201centertainment.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is very rarely, in any of these scenarios, a true replacement for any human,\u201d Anand told Wired<\/em>, when asked if he was concerned about his young child developing human-like bonds with AI chatbots. \u201cIt\u2019s very clearly noted in the app that, hey, this is a role-play and an entertainment, so you will never start going deep into that conversation, assuming that it is your actual companion.\u201d<\/p>\n

It remains a little hazy exactly what Character.AI is doing. While it\u2019s saying that it\u2019ll work to block teens from engaging in open-ended chats, it says it\u2019s \u201cworking\u201d on building \u201can under-18 experience that still gives our teen users ways to be creative,\u201d for example by creating images and videos with the app.<\/p>\n

Per its blog post, the company says it\u2019ll do three things over the next several weeks: remove the ability for teens to engage in \u201copen-ended\u201d chats with AI companions, a change that will take place by the end of the month; roll out a \u201cnew age assurance functionality\u201d that, per Anand\u2019s comments to the NYT<\/em>, involves using an in-house tool that analyzes user chats and their connected accounts; and establish an AI Safety Lab, which Character.AI says will be an \u201cindependent non-profit\u201d devoted to ensuring AI alignment.<\/p>\n

Character.AI came under scrutiny in October 2025 when a Florida mother named Megan Garcia<\/a> filed a first-of-its-kind lawsuit against the AI firm, alleging that its chatbots had sexually abused her 14-year-old son, Sewell Setzer III<\/a>, causing his mental breakdown and eventual death by suicide. Similar suits by other parents in Texas<\/a>, Colorado<\/a>, and more states have followed.<\/p>\n

In a statement, Tech Justice Law Project founder Meetali Jain, a lawyer for Garcia, said the chatbot platform\u2019s \u201cdecision to raise the minimum age to 18 and above reflects a classic move in the tech industry\u2019s playbook: move fast, launch a product globally, break minds, and then make minimal product changes after harming scores of young people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jain added that while the shift is a step in the right direction, the promised changes \u201cdo not address the underlying design features that facilitate these emotional dependencies \u2014 not just for children, but also for people over the age of 18 years.\u201d<\/p>\n

More on kids and AI companions:<\/strong> Stanford Researchers Say No Kid Under 18 Should Be Using AI Chatbot Companions<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

The post Character.AI, Accused of Driving Teens to Suicide, Says It Will Ban Minors From Using Its Chatbots<\/a> appeared first on Futurism<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Content warning: this story includes discussion of self-harm and suicide. If you are in crisis, please call, text or chat with the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988, or contact…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[177,3841],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6315","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-artificial-intelligence","category-ethics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6315","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6315"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6315\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}