After announcing last month that it would prohibit teens from having open-ended chats with AI chatbots, Character.AI this week introduced a new way to interact with AI-powered characters. You can now choose some characters, pick a genre and generate guided stories.
Think of the concept as a kind of Choose Your Own Adventure book for the AI age. Instead of turning the page on a pre-written tale, you’re telling a large language model where to go next.
Character.AI framed the move as a way to allow children to get entertainment from interacting with their favorite AI bots. (The platform has a collection of customized “characters” with different traits and “personalities” for people to interact with.) Those under age 18 are no longer able to have open-ended conversations with bots on the platform.
The company implemented age restrictions after it and other AI platforms came under scrutiny for harmful interactions children had with chatbots. Firms have been sued several times this year by parents of teens who died by suicide after discussing self-harm with AI models. That includes OpenAI, maker of the industry-leading ChatGPT, which submitted a response this week in a lawsuit filed by the parents of Adam Raine. Raine’s parents allege he died by suicide after repeated interactions with ChatGPT in which the AI continued to engage with him and offered advice on ways to harm himself. OpenAI said it has increased the safety guardrails in its AI models, particularly for those under 18.
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The changes by Character.AI are more sweeping. CEO Karandeep Anand told in October that the move toward more carefully designed roleplaying games and videos will provide a better experience for teens than conversations.
The stories feature released this week allows anyone to create roleplaying interactions with familiar characters that are replayable and shareable. “By introducing a visual, narrative-first format, our platform continues to support types of creativity beyond open-ended chat,” Character.AI said in a blog post announcing the feature.
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