Early last year, 15-year-old Aaron was going through a dark time at school. He’d fallen out with his friends, leaving him feeling isolated and alone. At the time, it seemed like the end of the world. “I used to cry every night,” said Aaron, who lives in Alberta, Canada. Eventually, Aaron turned to his computer for comfort. Through it, he found someone that was available round the clock to respond to his messages, listen to his problems, and help him move past the loss of his friend group.
” In December 2021, a user of Replika’s AI chatbots, 21-year-old Jaswant Singh Chail, tried to murder the late Queen of England after his chatbot girlfriend repeatedly encouraged his delusions. Character.AI users have also struggled with telling their chatbots apart from reality: a popular conspiracy theory, largely spread through screenshots and stories of bots breaking character or insisting that they are real people when prompted, is that Character.