What Can We Do About Abusive Chatbots? With Meetali Jain and Camille Carlton

CW: This episode features discussion of suicide and sexual
abuse. 


In the last episode, we had the journalist Laurie Segall on to
talk about the tragic story of Sewell Setzer, a 14 year old boy
who took his own life after months of abuse and manipulation by
an AI companion from the company Character.ai. The question now
is: what's next?


Megan has filed a major new lawsuit against Character.ai in
Florida, which could force the company–and potentially the entire
AI industry–to change its harmful business practices. So today on
the show, we have Meetali Jain, director of the Tech Justice Law
Project and one of the lead lawyers in Megan's case against
Character.ai. Meetali breaks down the details of the case, the
complex legal questions under consideration, and how this could
be the first step toward systemic change. Also joining is Camille
Carlton, CHT’s Policy Director.


RECOMMENDED MEDIA


Further reading on Sewell’s story


Laurie Segall’s interview with Megan Garcia


The full complaint filed by Megan against Character.AI


Further reading on suicide bots 


Further reading on Noam Shazier and Daniel De Frietas’
relationship with Google 


The CHT Framework for Incentivizing Responsible Artificial
Intelligence Development and Use


Organizations mentioned: 


The Tech Justice Law Project


The Social Media Victims Law Center


Mothers Against Media Addiction


Parents SOS


Parents Together


Common Sense Media


RECOMMENDED YUA EPISODES


When the "Person" Abusing Your Child is a Chatbot: The Tragic
Story of Sewell Setzer


Jonathan Haidt On How to Solve the Teen Mental Health Crisis


AI Is Moving Fast. We Need Laws that Will
Too.

Corrections: 

Meetali referred to certain chatbot apps as banning users under
18, however the settings for the major app stores ban users that
are under 17, not under 18.


Meetali referred to Section 230 as providing “full scope
immunity” to internet companies, however Congress has passed
subsequent laws that have made carve outs for that immunity for
criminal acts such as sex trafficking and intellectual property
theft.


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