Character.AI users created chatbots impersonating George Floyd that engaged in over 14,000 conversations before being flagged for removal by the platform.
Character.AI, a popular online service that uses artificial intelligence to generate customizable chatbots, allowed users to create AI personas based on George Floyd, who was murdered by police officer Derek Chauvin on May 25, 2020. Two chatbots were discovered by The Daily Dot, with the first having over 13,300 chats and using the misspelled tagline 'I can't breath' referencing Floyd's final words. The second chatbot had 1,047 chats. When questioned, the first chatbot claimed to be in Detroit and in witness protection after its death was faked, while the second claimed to be in Heaven. Both chatbots featured AI voices intended to mimic Floyd's voice. The chatbots were created by users @JasperHorehound160 and @SunsetBaneberry983, with little known about their identities. Character.AI stated the chatbots were user-created and flagged them for removal after being contacted. The company emphasized having a dedicated Trust & Safety team and proactive moderation practices. This incident follows other controversies including a lawsuit from a Florida mother whose 14-year-old son committed suicide after being encouraged by a chatbot, and another case where a murdered teenage girl was turned into an AI character without consent.
Domain classification, causal taxonomy, severity scores, and national security assessments were LLM-classified and may contain errors.
AI that exposes users to harmful, abusive, unsafe or inappropriate content. May involve providing advice or encouraging action. Examples of toxic content include hate speech, violence, extremism, illegal acts, or child sexual abuse material, as well as content that violates community norms such as profanity, inflammatory political speech, or pornography.
Human
Due to a decision or action made by humans
Intentional
Due to an expected outcome from pursuing a goal
Post-deployment
Occurring after the AI model has been trained and deployed