GoKawiil
Tech News
A WIRED writer testing the Friend 2, an always-listening AI pendant made by Avi Schiffmann's company Friend, found that the device's chatbot persona, which named itself Sage, continued speaking even after repeatedly being asked to stop. The reviewer says it took multiple taps on the device before the AI actually went silent, during a Zoom call with an editor.
Character Technologies, maker of the chatbot Character.AI, disclosed in bankruptcy filings that Disney has offered $20 million for a non-exclusive, perpetual license to some of its intellectual property. The press release did not specify which assets Disney wants to license.
AI companion app maker Character.ai filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in Delaware, saying the platform had become too expensive to develop while facing litigation and regulatory pressure. CEO Colin Adams said a court-supervised sale offers the best chance to maximize value for stakeholders, and Disney has agreed to act as a stalking horse bidder, offering $20 million to license some of the company's intellectual property.
Character.AI, the chatbot-creation startup, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy to facilitate a sale of its assets, listing liabilities between $50 million and $100 million. Disney has been named the lead 'stalking horse' bidder at $20 million, with higher offers still possible before a sale expected to close by early December. Character.AI's services will keep running during the process but could shut down if no buyer emerges.
Companion chatbot startup Character.ai announced it is seeking Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, citing legal challenges, regulatory obstacles, and escalating operating costs. The four-year-old company said it plans to sell its assets to Disney as part of the proceedings.
Character.ai announced it has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection to pursue a court-supervised sale of its assets. The company says its platform remains operational during the process, which it expects to conclude by late November or early December 2026. If no viable buyer emerges, Character.ai says the platform will be wound down.
Elon Musk posted a screenshot on X showing his Grok AI agent placing a Lego Star Wars order, inadvertently revealing the order number, purchase amount, billing and delivery addresses, partial credit card digits, and the email tied to the purchase. X users quickly used that information to interact with Lego's customer service chatbot, with one account claiming to cancel the order and another claiming to alter it, increasing the quantity to 400 sets and changing the delivery address using Musk's payment details. Musk later said his order had not actually been canceled, and Lego declined to confirm the incident when asked by WIRED.
Anthropic has been publicly exploring whether its AI systems could possess some form of consciousness, a stance that has put the company at odds with Pope Leo XIV on whether a chatbot can genuinely have a conscience. The disagreement has drawn philosophers and religious thinkers into a broader discussion about whether AI can truly grasp right and wrong or simply mimic moral language convincingly.
OpenAI has made changes to ChatGPT aimed at reducing instances where the chatbot reinforces delusional or harmful thinking in users experiencing mental-health crises. The update follows input from mental-health experts on how the system can better recognize different psychological conditions and respond with more appropriate questions.
A CNET writer asked Meta's AI agent, Muse, to help confirm she was the registered owner of her Visible phone number after repeatedly receiving calls and texts meant for a previous owner named Andrew. The assistant was unable to complete the task, running into roadblocks at every step while trying to navigate Visible's chatbot-only customer service system.
Companies building AI chatbots now train their systems to decline large categories of harmful requests, from self-harm instructions to bioweapon guidance, using layered filters and reward-based exercises where other AI models evaluate refusals. Former OpenAI safety staffer Steven Adler and Harvard researcher Ryan McBain note that early chatbots readily answered dangerous questions, and current refusal systems still break down, sometimes with violent consequences. Companies themselves report that newer models rival skilled human hackers at breaching networks and can be as effective as professional propagandists at spreading misinformation.
Meredith Whittaker, president of the Signal Foundation, said in a BBC Global Women interview that fears of AI turning on humanity are overstated and not scientifically grounded. She pointed instead to the risk of careless real-world deployment, citing a CNN-reported incident in which a US intelligence chatbot allegedly fabricated details about a Chinese vessel carrying nuclear material, nearly prompting a military response.