Character.AI, the GenAI site that convinced some children to kill themselves, has gone bankrupt after parents sued them.
we found hordes of chatbots explicitly dedicated to themes of pedophilia, suicide, self-harm, and eating disorder coaching, as well as a thriving community of users creating chatbots designed to simulate school shootings, romanticize real mass shooters, and even impersonate the real child victims of mass shootings.
Perhaps for a small group of consumers. Not nearly enough for it to be even close to profitable though. I think you are unaware of the hundreds of billions of dollars of debt these companies are in. And those loans are coming due now and the next years. They will need to pay those debts or else they lose all of the compute, which is literally their entire business. Neither Anthropic or OpenAI owns any datacenters, they are all leased on debt.
They will need to suddenly be more profitable than Microsoft and Google, while they are currently much much less profitable than even the poorest household you can imagine.
I think you’re underestimating the addiction kids have for their AI. They outsource their own opinions.
And I think you’re overestimating the money most families make a month. If they are so in the red that many can’t even afford groceries, do you think they’ll be able to add a hefty AI bill monthly to the amount they already can’t pay? It’s basic maths: If I earn 10 and just to exist I need 12 right now, how will I be able to pay 20 when I add the AI bill if I still earn 10?