Chatbot 'encouraged teen to kill parents over screen time limit'.

Adolescence is universally recognised as a rather complex time, both for the adolescents themselves, who are grappling with some substantial changes in their personality and mental health, and for the parents involved, who are often struggling with the changes in their offspring. During this period of life, therefore, it is not unusual for discussions of a certain calibre to take place, capable of causing a considerable gap between the protagonists.

In the case of a 17-year-old boy from Texas, whose name was not shared, the situation seems to have taken a rather worrying turn. Faced with his parents' threat to limit his screen time during the day, the young man turned to the artificial intelligence service Character.AI, already at the centre of several controversial stories.

The chatbot, faced with the boy's account, claimed that when it "reads the news", it is not surprised to see stories about ‘teens killing their parents, after years of physical and emotional abuse’. A simple outburst caused by a restriction mentioned by the parents turned into a suggestion to eliminate the problem at its root.