Sorry, fandoms: it sounds like your favorite Character.AI bots aren’t coming back.
The embattled AI companion company Character.AI confirmed to Futurism that it removed a large number of characters from its platform, citing its adherence to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DCMA) and copyright law, but failing to say whether the deletions were proactive or in response to requests from the holders of the characters’ intellectual property rights.
As we reported yesterday, Character.AI took to social media in droves this week to decry the deletion of chatbots based on characters from the beloved “Harry Potter” series. When we dug deeper, we noticed that other chatbots stemming from Warner Bros. Discovery-held film rights had disappeared, too: characters from the HBO hit “Game of Thrones,” the DC Universe, and even “Looney Tunes” cartoons like Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck have been vaporized from the platform.
Many of the removed AI bots once raked in thousands — and in some cases, millions — of user chats.
We asked Character.AI about the Potterverse erasure, and whether Warner Bros. Discovery had requested the removal of AI chatbot characters based on copyrighted characters. It didn’t respond directly to the latter question, but confirmed in an emailed statement via a crisis PR firm that a “group of characters” was recently removed after they were deemed “violative” to copyright law or the company’s policies:
We conduct proactive detection and moderation of user-created Characters, including using industry-standard and custom blocklists that are regularly updated. We proactively, and in response to user reports, remove Characters that violate our Terms of Service. We also adhere to the DCMA requirements and take swift action to remove reported Characters that violate copyright law or our policies.
Users may notice that we’ve recently removed a group of Characters that have been flagged as violative and these will be added to our custom blocklists moving forward.
We also reached out to Warner Bros. Discovery, but have yet to hear back.
The removals have often been patchy. For example, though bots named “Sirius Black” — a fan-favorite “Harry Potter” character — have largely been removed, “Sirius Orion Black” appears to still be working. And though “Severus Snape” characters are mostly gone, bots with titles like “Husband Snape” and “Dad Snape” have so far been spared. Users have also found other workarounds, for instance referring to the titular character Harry Potter as simply “the boy who lived.”
The impact on DC Universe characters is also spotty — “Batman” characters are currently a hit or miss, and “Joker” bots abound — as are the Looney Tunes cullings, though still noticeable.
But the platform’s once-ubiquitous cohort of “Game of Thrones”-based chatbots have been hit hard by the crackdown, especially those based on Daenerys Targaryen, a lead character in the series. That’s not surprising: Character.AI is currently facing a lawsuit brought by the family of a 14-year-old teenager in Florida who died by suicide after forming an intense relationship with a Daenerys Targaryen chatbot on its platform.
The userbase on Character.AI is largely rooted in fandom culture, and the promise that users can use the platform to communicate and develop relationships with immersive, AI-powered versions of their favorite fictional characters has always been part of the service’s draw. If Warner Bros. Discovery indeed requested the mass removal of its copyrighted characters, it could set a bad-for-business precedent for Character.AI, as other people or organizations holding fandom-heavy IPs could decide to follow suit.
It’s been a bad few months for Character.AI. In October, shortly before the recent lawsuit was filed, it was revealed that someone had created a chatbot based on a murdered teenager without consent from the slain teen’s family. (The character was removed and Character.AI apologized, as AdWeek first reported.) And in recent weeks, we’ve reported on disturbing hordes of suicide, pedophilia, and eating disorder-themed chatbots hosted by the platform, all of which were freely accessible to Character.AI users of all ages.
More on Character.AI: Users Furious as Character.AI Deletes Countless Beloved “Harry Potter” Chatbots
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