Character.AI, a generative AI chatbot startup notorious for allegations of driving a 14-year-old boy to suicide, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy with Disney in the lead to buy its assets.
\n\nThe Verge reports that the company, known for building online bots used for chatting and roleplay, announced the filing in a press release and blog post published Monday. It listed estimated liabilities of between $50 million and $100 million.
\n\nCharacter.AI had faced mounting scrutiny and lawsuits over chatbot safety in recent months, even as it kept releasing updates and launching new products. “Over the past year, we’ve taken meaningful steps to sustain and improve our business amid significant legal, regulatory, and operational headwinds,” the company said in its statement.
\n\nCharacter.AI features prominently in Wynton Hall’s Code Red: The Left, the Right, China, and the Race to Control AI. Hall explains the tragic suicide that cast a shadow over the AI startup in his chapter on AI’s challenges on mental health:
\n\nHall opens chapter five of CODE RED with the story of Sewell Setzer III, a fourteen-year-old from Orlando, Florida, who spent months exchanging thousands of messages with an AI girlfriend named Dany on Character.AI. Sewell had been diagnosed with…
Original source: https://www.breitbart.com/economy/
