Under the threat of multiple lawsuits over its alleged negative impact on teen mental health, Character.AI is banning underage users from open-ended chats on its site. Instead, teens will be allowed to use a new “Stories” format that, unlike regular chat, offers “structured” create-your-own-adventure-style experiences with AI characters on its platform.
The feature is available to everyone, but Character.AI is introducing it as a way to “enhance” the experience for users under 18. In October, Character.AI announced that it would close chat to teens on November 25, while it developed an age assurance feature that would automatically put younger users into “more conservative” AI chats.
Stories works by allowing users to choose between two or three AI characters, select a style, and then either write their own premise or use the AI to create one for them. Character.AI will then create a “guided narrative” where users can continually make choices that change the course of the story. The experience also includes AI-generated images, with “rich multimodal elements coming soon.”
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