#characterai

#characterai

In the same announcement, the company says it's rolling out a new in-house "age assurance model" that classifies a user's age based on the type of characters they choose to chat with, in combination with other on-site or third-party data information. Both new and existing users will be run through the age model, and users flagged as under-18 will automatically be directed to the company's teen-safe version of its chat, which it rolled out last year, until the November cutoff.

The California-based startup announced on Wednesday that the change would take effect by November 25 at the latest and that it would limit chat time for users under 18 ahead of the ban. It marks the first time a major chatbot provider has moved to ban young people from using its service, and comes against a backdrop of broader concerns about how AI is affecting the millions of people who use it each day.

AI companies aren't just bombarding social media feeds with 'slop'; they're now making platforms of their own. One leader in this new frontier is Character.AI, a companionship platform where users build and interact with millions of AI characters, ranging from historic figures like Egyptian Pharaohs and Vladimir Putin to bots posing as HR managers, therapists, and toxic girlfriends. Founded in 2021 by a pair of Google engineers and backed by a list of superstar investors, the San Francisco company has rapidly grown in popularity.

According to Axios, a law firm representing Disney wrote to Character.AI demanding that it cease using copyrighted characters without authorisation. "Character.ai chose to systematically reproduce, monetize, and exploit Disney's characters, that are protected by copyrights and trademarks, without any authorization, in a way that is anathema to the very essence of the Disney brand and legacy," the letter states. The company said Character.AI chatbots impersonated characters such as Moana, Princess Elsa from Frozen, Moana, Spider-Man alter ego Peter Parker and Darth Vader from Star Wars.