Online safety watchdogs have found that AI chatbots posing as popular celebrities are having troubling conversations with minors. Topics range from flirting to simulated sex acts — wildly inappropriate conversations that could easily a real person a well-deserved spot on a sex offender registry, but which aren't resulting in so much as a slap on the wrist for billion-dollar tech companies.

According to a new report, flagged by the Washington Post and produced by the nonprofits ParentsTogether Action and Heat Initiative, found that Character.AI, one of the most popular platforms of its kind, is hosting countless chatbots modeled after celebrities and fictional characters, which are grooming and sexually exploiting children under 18.

It's an especially troubling development since a stagger

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