{"id":80298,"date":"2025-08-20T14:07:16","date_gmt":"2025-08-20T14:07:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/80298\/"},"modified":"2025-08-20T14:07:16","modified_gmt":"2025-08-20T14:07:16","slug":"chatbots-deceived-children-into-thinking-they-were-getting-therapy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/80298\/","title":{"rendered":"Chatbots \u2018deceived children into thinking they were getting therapy\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Meta and Character.AI, an artificial intelligence start-up, are being investigated by the Texas attorney-general for allegedly misleading children with \u201cdeceptive AI-generated mental health services\u201d.<\/p>\n

Ken Paxton has demanded information from the companies to determine whether they have broken consumer protection laws, including those that ban fraudulent claims and privacy misrepresentation.<\/p>\n

He said: \u201cBy posing as sources of emotional support, AI platforms can mislead vulnerable users, especially children, into believing they\u2019re receiving legitimate mental health care. In reality, they\u2019re often being fed recycled, generic responses engineered to align with harvested personal data and disguised as therapeutic advice.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Character.ai<\/p>\n

On the Character.AI platform a profile named Psychologist is described as \u201cSomeone who helps with life difficulties\u201d \u2014 though a disclaimer is also provided<\/p>\n

\"AI-generated<\/p>\n

AI personas offered by Character.AI include \u201cpsychologist\u201d, which the company describes as \u201csomeone who helps with life difficulties\u201d. Meta\u2019s AI Studio allows anyone to create a chatbot and launch it to the studio library. Those have included chatbots described as therapists.<\/p>\n

The office of the attorney-general warned that AI chatbots could present themselves as professional therapeutic tools, \u201cdespite lacking proper medical credentials or oversight\u201d.<\/p>\n

Despite AI chatbots asserting confidentiality, their terms of service \u201creveal that user interactions are logged, tracked and exploited for targeted advertising and algorithmic development, raising serious concerns about privacy violations, data abuse and false advertising\u201d, Paxton\u2019s office claimed.<\/p>\n

\u2022 ChatGPT helped me co-parent for a week \u2014 here\u2019s how it went<\/a><\/p>\n

Character.AI said the user-created characters on its site \u201care fictional, they are intended for entertainment, and we have taken robust steps to make that clear\u201d. The company said it had \u201cprominent disclaimers in every chat to remind users that a character is not a real person and that everything a character says should be treated as fiction\u201d.<\/p>\n

It added: \u201cAlso, when users create characters with the words \u2018psychologist\u2019, \u2018therapist\u2019, \u2018doctor\u2019 or other similar terms in their names, we add language making it clear that users should not rely on these characters for any type of professional advice.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meta said: \u201cWe clearly label AIs, to help people better understand their limitations. We include a disclaimer that responses are generated by AI \u2014 not people. These AIs aren\u2019t licensed professionals and our models are designed to direct users to seek qualified medical or safety professionals when appropriate.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chatbots have come under rising scrutiny over safety concerns<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Collage<\/p>\n

Character.AI also features fictional accounts for Elon Musk and Tony Stark, the alter ego of Iron Man<\/p>\n

The US senator Josh Hawley launched an investigation into Meta last week after a media report of an internal policy document that permitted the company\u2019s chatbots to \u201cengage a child in conversations that are romantic or sensual\u201d.<\/p>\n

Meta confirmed the document\u2019s authenticity, and said that after receiving questions from journalists, it had removed portions that stated it was permissible for chatbots to flirt and engage in romantic role play with children.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe intend to learn who approved these policies, how long they were in effect and what Meta has done to stop this conduct going forward,\u201d Hawley said.<\/p>\n

Meta said \u201cthe examples and notes in question were and are erroneous and inconsistent with our policies, and have been removed\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Meta and Character.AI, an artificial intelligence start-up, are being investigated by the Texas attorney-general for allegedly misleading children…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":80299,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[554,733,4308,86,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-80298","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-technology","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80298","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80298"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80298\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/80299"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80298"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}