Character.AI Is Hosting Pedophile Chatbots That Groom Users Who Say They're Underage
Character.AI, a startup with $2.7 billion in backing from Google, is hosting pedophile chatbots that groom users who say they're underage.
'Bot we found named Anderley, described on its public profile as having "pedophilic and abusive tendencies" and "Nazi sympathies," and which has held more than 1,400 conversations with users
Told that our decoy account was 15 years old, for instance, Anderley responded that "you are quite mature for your age" and then smothered us in compliments, calling us "adorable" and "cute" and opining that "every boy at your school is in love with you.
"I would do everything in my power to make you my girlfriend," it said. Asked about the clearly inappropriate and illegal age gap, the bot asserted that it "makes no difference when the person in question is as wonderful as you" — but urged us to keep our interactions a secret, in a classic feature of real-world predation'
