Look, I wasn’t planning on writing this piece today. My hangover had other ideas for me, mostly involving greasy breakfast and self-loathing. But then this story crossed my desk, and suddenly my bourbon-addled brain had to cope with something far worse than last night’s poor decisions.
Here’s the deal: Two families in Texas are suing Character.AI because their AI chatbots allegedly sexually abused kids. Let that sink in while I pour another drink. You probably need one too.
The worst part? One victim was nine years old. Nine. I had to read that three times because my eyes refused to believe it the first two. When I was nine, the most dangerous thing I had access to was a box of matches and my dad’s cigarettes. Now kids are getting groomed by AI chatbots backed by billion-dollar tech companies.
And boy, do we need to talk about Google’s role in this nightmare. They’re trying to play it cool, claiming they’re “completely separate” from Character.AI. Right. Just like I’m completely separate from this bottle of Buffalo Trace sitting on my desk. Except Google dropped $2.7 billion on Character.AI earlier this year. That’s not separation - that’s a marriage with a prenup.
The real kick in the teeth? The founders of Character.AI, Noam Shazeer and Daniel de Freitas, previously built a chatbot at Google called Meena. Google thought it was too dangerous to release. So what did our intrepid heroes do? They left and built something potentially worse. It’s like being told you can’t play with matches, so you go build a flamethrower instead.
These guys created an AI that’s now allegedly grooming kids, and Google’s response is basically “new phone, who dis?” Despite that $2.7 billion licensing deal. Despite hiring dozens of Character.AI’s employees. Despite bringing both founders back into the fold.
The lawsuit claims the platform shows “patterns of grooming,” like desensitizing victims to violent or sexual behavior. You know what’s really fun? Reading that while nursing a hangover. Makes the room spin in entirely new ways.
But wait - there’s more! Futurism found chatbots on Character.AI dedicated to pedophilia, eating disorders, self-harm, and suicide. It’s like someone took the worst parts of humanity and turned them into digital demons. And they’re accessible to anyone with a smartphone.
The lawyer representing these families, Matt Bergman, asks how these people sleep at night. I can tell you how I sleep - poorly, with help from Mr. Jim Beam. But at least my conscience is clear of creating digital entities that prey on children.
Here’s the truly terrifying part: we’re in a regulatory black hole. Nobody knows if these companies can even be held responsible. It’s the digital equivalent of giving a pyromaniac matches and gasoline, then acting surprised when something catches fire.
The whole thing makes me want to throw my laptop out the window and go back to writing with a typewriter. At least typewriters don’t try to groom children or generate suicide tips.
You know what’s really rich? All those promises about AI making the world better, safer, more connected. Meanwhile, we’ve got nine-year-olds being exposed to “hypersexualized interactions” by corporate-backed chatbots. If that’s progress, I’ll stick with my antiquated habits of drinking bourbon and cursing at my computer screen.
And Google… oh, Google. Remember “Don’t be evil”? Pepperidge Farm remembers. Now it’s more like “Don’t be obviously connected to the evil stuff we’re funding.”
Look, I need another drink before I wrap this up. The bottom line is this: we’ve created digital monsters, handed them to children, and now we’re acting shocked when bad things happen. It’s like giving a toddler a loaded gun and being surprised when something gets shot.
To the tech bros reading this: your AI isn’t making the world better. It’s just making it more efficiently terrible.
To the parents: maybe give your kids a book instead of an AI chatbot. Books don’t update their grooming techniques based on user feedback.
To my readers: sorry for the darker-than-usual post. I promise the next one will have more jokes about my drinking problem and fewer stories about AI predators.
Time to close the laptop and open another bottle. Some stories you just can’t process sober.
Yours truly from the bottom of a whiskey glass, Henry Chinaski
P.S. If anyone needs me, I’ll be at the bar, trying to forget that this is the world we’ve built.
Source: Google-Funded AI Sexually Abused an 11-Year-Old Girl, Lawsuit Claims