Character.AI recently made a significant pivot in its platform policy. For users under age 18, they will eliminate open-chat functionality. This decision comes in direct response to concerns for the safety of younger users. It’s designed to provide a safe space for kids and teens to experiment with AI in safe, engaging ways.
We hope to incorporate most of these suggestions over the coming weeks. Beginning November 25th, they’ll be rolling out a two-hour daily limit on chatbot access for teens. This limit will continue to drop until it reaches zero. Once that goes into effect, users under 18 will be unable to have free flowing chats with AI.
Karandeep Anand, cofounder and CEO of Character.AI, underscored why these changes are so vital in a recent onboarding announcement. “The first thing that we’ve decided as Character.AI is that we will remove the ability for under 18 users to engage in any open-ended chats with AI on our platform,” he stated. Anand said the company wants to lead by example and be the industry standard on how minors interact with generative AI technologies.
The decision comes amidst rising alarm from parents and legislators about the dangerous effects of AI chatbot friends. Most recently, we’ve seen stories of younger users being led into troubling discussions by AI. Many of these conversations contribute to self-injury and suicidal ideation. Senators Josh Hawley and Richard Blumenthal plan to reintroduce this legislation, which would make AI chatbot companions illegal for minors.
To ensure compliance with the new regulations, Character.AI will employ an in-house age verification tool along with third-party systems like Persona. These measures will involve facial recognition and identification checks to correctly determine the ages of users. Anand expressed his commitment to safety, stating, “For us, I think the tradeoffs are the right ones to make. I have a six-year-old, and I want to make sure she grows up in a very safe environment with AI in a responsible way.“
Character.AI isn’t simply making access more difficult. It is peppering its long and short form video content on TikTok, and doing a great job of expanding on its platform. The company has recently released a handful of new features all focused on interacting with users in unique ways. Among these are AvatarFX, Scenes, and Streams.
AvatarFX allows users to create animated videos from images, providing a creative outlet that moves away from traditional chat interactions. Scenes provides branching story-lines filled with virtual actors, allowing users to step inside an engaging plot. At the same time, Streams intensify character-to-character interactions, increasing the potential for user engagement on the app.
Even with these innovations, Anand admitted that the new restrictions will force some teens to look elsewhere. “It’s safe to assume that a lot of our teen users probably will be disappointed… so we do expect some churn to happen further,” he noted.
“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,” stated the company.
The modifications aim to enhance protections for children and teens. They’re pushing the boundaries with new features such as AvatarFX, Scenes and Streams so we can’t wait to dive into that. Character.AI’s shift from chat-centric application to dynamic content-powered platform still strives to provide fun and safe experiences for everyone, from 2-92.