It was to win a race for profit,” said Megan Garcia, whose son, Sewell Setzer III, died by suicide after extensive interactions with chatbots hosted by the Google-backed chatbot company Character.AI. Though it’s declined to publicly share information about safety testing, Character.AI continues to market its product as safe for teens. “AI exploits this neural vulnerability with chatbots that can be obsequious, deceptive, factually inaccurate, yet disproportionately powerful for teens. Yesterday on Capitol Hill, the room agreed that the cost of that regulatory vacuum appears to be dead children. That’s the reform we are to start with.”More on kids and chatbots: Stanford Researchers Say No Kid Under 18 Should Be Using AI Chatbot Companions