Jennifer Ann Crecente’s name and likeness were used without the family’s consent to develop a chatbot on Character. The app which recently struck a deal with Google allows users to develop their own characters and interact with them.
On the morning of October 2, Drew Crecente received a notification from Google on his phone.
When he took his device, he discovered that his daughter Jennifer Ann Crecente had reappeared in a new profile on the Internet.
The account featured her full name, a yearbook photo, and a fake bio stating she was a “video game journalist and expert on technology, pop culture, and journalism.”
Drew was horrified by what he saw: 18 years earlier, Jennifer was shot and killed by her boyfriend in Austin, Texas.
Everything indicated that the name and image of his only daughter had been used without authorization to create a chatbot of Artificial intelligence In Character a platform that allows users to develop characters and chat with them.
Who was Jennifer Crecente
Drew Crecente has indicated in various interviews that she faced a surge of emotions when she discovered that the image of her murdered daughter was being used as an AI chatbot without the family’s knowledge.
“At first I was confused” he told the media Daily Mail . “This confusion quickly turned to dread and anger as I began to realize that, somehow, a service was providing users with the means to chat with my beloved, deceased daughter. “ he added.
Jennifer’s case shocked the Austin community in 2006.
The young woman, then aged 18, was in her final year of high school and was in an abusive relationship with Justin Crabbe . After disappearing in February of that year, her body was found in a wooded area of the city. Investigators later determined that Crabbe took her into the woods and shot her, after which he was convicted of murder. Today, he is still serving a 35-year prison sentence.
His death was also a blow to his parents, Drew and Elizabeth. Each of them decided to create associations, in tribute to their daughter, to prevent gender-based violence in adolescence.
The case also led to the passage of new legislation in Texas: one that aims to require school districts to adopt policies regarding dating violence in teens, and another that aims to grant posthumous diplomas to students who died before completing their degree.
The discovery of Jennifer Crecente’s chatbot
Drew explained that he didn’t know exactly when the chatbot was created, let alone who was responsible for releasing it.
The discovery happened because, through the organization he runs, Google tracks whether his daughter is named and sends him alerts every time it happens. On October 2, the notification led him to Jennifer’s fake profile on Character.
The chatbot displayed a description of the teenager as if she were still alive, specifying that she is “always up to date with the latest show business news” and that she had experience in video game news .
At the time Drew discovered the profile, it indicated that he had worked in more than 60 discussions . Shortly after, he contacted Character via email to demand that they remove the chatbot and also backup its creator’s data.
He’s not the only one who has tried to contact the artificial intelligence company about what happened. Jennifer’s uncle, Brian Crecente who founded gaming sites like Kotaku and Polygon, posted on X demanding an end to “this kind of terrible practice.”
Minutes later, Character responded to Brian’s tweet and claimed that the Jennifer-based chatbot had been removed from the system for violating the company’s phishing policies. “We will analyze whether further measures are justified,” they added.
What is character
Character is a startup founded in 2021 by Noam Shazeer and Daniel De Freitas, who worked for several years at Google. They both resigned from the company after it refused to launch the chatbot service they had created, citing security concerns.
The objective of Character is that, thanks to Artificial Intelligence, users have the possibility of generating and personalizing chatbots according to their own interests. Once these are created, they can be published in the app so more people can chat with them.
Characters can be inspired by public figures, ranging from Taylor Swift to Elon Musk. Others are based on fictional characters, such as Frodo Baggins.
It is worth noting that in August this year, Character signed a non-exclusive agreement with Google to use its technology. The tech giant also rehired Shazeer and De Freitas.
The application has not been exempt from being questioned since its launch, in particular because it offers the possibility of interacting as if the other were a human and could generate dependence in certain people. Today, with the Crecente affair, new concerns arise about respect for murder victims and data protection, in the midst of the boom in artificial intelligence.
Source: Latercera
I am David Jack and I have been working in the news industry for over 10 years. As an experienced journalist, I specialize in covering sports news with a focus on golf. My articles have been published by some of the most respected publications in the world including The New York Times and Sports Illustrated.
