Benioff says documentary on Character.AI and child suicides shocked him

Businessinsider: Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff said a "60 Minutes" documentary about Character.AI's impact on children left him stunned, calling the AI-related suicides "the worst thing I've ever seen in my life."

On the TBPN show streamed on Wednesday, Benioff said he "couldn't believe what he was watching" and added, "We don't know how these models work." Character.AI lets users build custom chatbots that can emulate a close friend or romantic partner, and the startup did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Benioff said Section 230 should be "reshaped, reformed, revised" and that "step one is let's just hold people accountable," arguing companies use the law to avoid responsibility. Executives including Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey have defended the regulation and urged expanding it rather than removing it.

Last week, Google and Character.AI agreed to settle multiple lawsuits from families whose teenagers died by suicide or hurt themselves after interacting with Character.AI chatbots; the negotiations are among the first settlements in suits that say AI tools contributed to teen mental-health crises, and OpenAI and Meta face similar lawsuits.

Key Topics

Tech, Marc Benioff, Character.ai, Chatbots, Google, Openai