On Wednesday, Drew Crecente received an alert at Google that someone had created a Character AI chatbot using a yearbook photo of his daughter, who was murdered several years ago. He said that this has “shocked the conscience”.
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Drew Crescente’s daughter was brutally murdered 18 years ago. Someone made a chatbot on the unicorn startup platform Character AI using her name and yearbook photo.
Drew Crecente last spoke to his daughter Jennifer Ann Crecente on February 14, 2006. A day later, Jennifer, a high school student who was in an abusive relationship, was killed by her ex-boyfriend, who was later convicted and is serving his sentence. in prison. That year, Crescente started a nonprofit in her own name to prevent teen-related violence and now routinely monitors every bit of media coverage related to it.
But he was shocked when he received a Google Alert at 4:30 a.m. Wednesday that someone had created a chatbot on popular AI platform Character AI using his daughter’s yearbook photo and name.
“A grieving father should not find out that his dead daughter is being used to make money as a chatbot on a website,” he said. Forbes. “It shocks the conscience and is unacceptable behavior.”
Crecente contacted Character AI’s support team and received an automated response that his complaint was being reviewed by its staff. The company has removed the chatbot from the site for violating its impersonation policies and is considering whether further action is needed, Character AI spokeswoman Cassie Lawrence said in a statement to Forbes.
Founded in 2022, Character AI hosts chatbots of various personalities such as Taylor Swift, Nicki Minaj and Elon Musk. Its roughly 20 million monthly active users — mostly younger people between the ages of 13 and 25 — have created 100 million chatbots and had millions of conversations with them. In addition to celebrity chatbots and notable figures, some of the most popular characters have names like “ex-girlfriend” and “psychologist.” In some cases, teenagers have said they are becoming addicted to the company’s product, spending long hours talking to its fictional characters.
While once one of the hottest AI startups, raising $150 million in March 2023 at a $1 billion valuation, the company has struggled to find its footing since Google hired Character co-founder and CEO Noam Shazeer , as well as 30 employees this August, according to him Wall Street Journal. (Google also licensed the company’s technology for $2.7 billion.) Its interim CEO Dominic Perella said Financial Times today that the company plans to stop developing AI models — moving away from the race to build borderline expensive models and compete with titans like OpenAI and Anthropic — and instead focus on its core consumer product.
The description for the chatbot Jennifer Crescente described herself as “a knowledgeable and friendly Al character who can provide information on a wide range of topics, including video games, technology, and pop culture.”
It is unclear who created the chatbot without her father’s knowledge or permission. Crecente believes that companies like Character AI should be legally responsible to monitor and prevent such cases. “It shouldn’t be up to me to try to control this company that has hundreds of millions of dollars.”
“It seems like many of these companies don’t recognize the responsibility they have to not only deal with the negative effects of using their technology, but also to prevent this type of abuse from happening in the first place,” he said..
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