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Popular artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot platform Character.ai, widely used for role-playing and creative storytelling with virtual characters, announced Wednesday that users under 18 will no longer be able to engage in open-ended conversations with its virtual companions starting Nov. 24.

The move follows months of legal scrutiny and a 2024 lawsuit alleging that the company’s chatbots contributed to the death of a teenage boy in Orlando. According to the federal wrongful death lawsuit, 14-year-old Sewell Setzer III increasingly isolated himself from real-life interactions and engaged in highly sexualized conver

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