“What’s the worst that can happen?” - Zuck before launching AI Characters…

Spoiler: A lot. 

Meta just hit the brakes on  teens talking to AI “characters”... a.k.a., the not your daddys ChatGPT like chatbot with personalities that exist purely to keep your child emotionally attached to it. 

(Source: Giphy) 

In short, starting in the  “coming weeks,” teens won’t be able to access Meta’s AI characters until the “updated experience” is ready. Which is a funny way of saying: “we are deleting features as fast as we can before a judge sees them.”

So what’s actually happening here? Well, if Meta thinks you’re a minor… either because you told them your real birthday (rookie mistake), or because their age-prediction tech doesn’t accept Benchwarmer-like “I am 12” birth certificates… you’re getting locked out of the AI character stuff. Teens can still talk to Meta AI (the assistant), but the “character bots” are getting sent to the shadow realm for now. Translation: you can still ask the bot what time Chick-fil-A closes, but you can’t have a nightly situationship with “Goth Girlfriend 3000” who tells you you’re misunderstood. Not that I know, of course.

(Source: New York Post) 

But Y?

Because Meta is about to walk into court in Los Angeles next week with TikTok and YouTube and explain why their apps totally don’t fry kids’ brains. So Meta doing this right before trial is basically to cover their own a$$ before things get worse. Also, AI characters + teens is just a cursed combo. I’m not going to go into specifics but think about the biological ecosystem these kids are experiencing right now. Add in, AI to “explore creativity” and suddenly you end up with a metric f*ck ton of chaos. 

Plus, the entire  internet has already seen where this movie goes. Character.AI banned minors last fall after the whole “maybe kids shouldn’t be forming parasocial bonds with a machine” realization hit mainstream. They’re also dealing with lawsuits, including one tied to a teenager’s death. So when Meta says “we’re pausing teen access until we update the experience”… it’s not exactly subtle what they’re updating.

(Source: Giphy) 

But I digress. For now, Meta is doing the pre-trial cleanup sprint by benching AI characters. And of course, Zuck is about to walk into court like he definitely didn’t invent the exact machine everyone is suing him for. Place your bets accordingly. Until next time, friends… 

At the time of publishing, Stocks.News does not hold positions in companies mentioned in the article.