Drew Crecente remembers how her “pulse raced” when she discovered her dead teenage daughter, murdered 18 years earlier, had been turned into an artificially intelligent chatbot.
Jennifer Crecente was shot and killed by her ex-high school boyfriend in 2006. Drew was stunned when he saw his name and image resurrected as an online character earlier this month.
“At first, I was confused,” Drew told DailyMail.com.
“That confusion quickly turned to fear and anger, when I began to realize that somehow a service provided the means for users to chat with my beloved, late daughter.”
Jennifer’s name and portrait were used as the basis for a bot on Character.AI, a site that allows users to create and chat with AI digital personalities.
Happiest memories: Drew Crecente and her daughter Jennifer, murdered by her 18-year-old ex-boyfriend in 2006.
A saved screenshot of the profile of chatbot ‘Jennifer’, which has since been removed from the Character.ai platform.
The grieving father’s anguish raises difficult questions about data privacy and respect for murder victims’ families in the rapidly growing online world of AI characters.
Drawing He came across the chatbot on October 2 after receiving a Google alert pointing to a mention of Jennifer.
The alerts helped him stay on top of the coverage of Jennifer’s murder and her subsequent Campaign against dating violence among adolescents..
He had a hard time understanding what it was, he says. The more he looked, the more disturbed he became.
The robot’s profile used Jennifer’s full name and a portrait photo from her high school yearbook.
It described her in animated language, suggesting that she was still alive and working as a technology journalist who liked to “have fun with video games.”
The bio added that Jennifer was “always up to date with the latest entertainment news.”
It was clearly nonsense: Jennifer had died 18 years earlier, before tech reporters were common.
Still, the idea of a billion-dollar company hosting and even profiting from a chatbot using the image of its murdered daughter was distressing.
“I’ve worked in and around the tech industry for decades, so I’ve been familiar with the concept of chatbots for a long time,” Drew said.
“But I was very surprised to find one created with my daughter’s name and photo.”
Drew says he didn’t start a conversation with the chatbot.
The bot appeared to have been created by a user of the platform and Drew did not recognize the username.
He believes the company’s own AI created the bot, gathering online sources about Jennifer and other family members.
Jennifer’s uncle, Brian Crecente, said he was “disgusted” by how the slain teen’s high school yearbook photo was used as an AI chatbot.
A selection of Jennifer’s childhood photos from a site in her name that aims to end teen dating violence.
Drew says he still doesn’t “have the vocabulary to describe” his grief over losing his daughter Jennifer.
The 100 million bots created by the chatbot site’s users are in some cases based on real-life personalities and historical and fictional figures.
“It seems they are either not doing the minimum necessary to vet these chatbot profiles or their technology is so bad as to be useless,” he told DailyMail.com.
He emailed Character to have it removed.
It no longer appears on the site.
Kathryn Kelly, a spokesperson for Character, said the company removes chatbots that violate its terms of service.
The platform is “constantly evolving and refining our security practices to help prioritize the safety of our community,” he told The Washington Post.
Their rules say that users cannot impersonate any person or entity.
“When we were notified about Jennifer’s character, we reviewed the content and account and took action based on our policies,” Kelly said in a statement.
AI robots can be programmed to take on the traits and biographical details of specific characters, real or imagined.
They are becoming more popular as AI platforms market digital companions as friends, mentors, and even romantic partners.
They are not without controversy. A Belgian man committed suicide last year after a chatbot encouraged him to do so.
Character, which signed a $2.5 billion deal this year to license its bots to Google, is one of the largest platforms of its kind.
Most of its 100 million user-created bots were clearly designed for that purpose.
They often have quirky names and anime portraits.
But others draw inspiration from real-life icons, from Anne Frank to Taylor Swift to Donald Trump.
Others still borrow from fiction, in the case of Sherlock Holmes.
Still, it was the last place Drew expected to see his beloved Jennifer.
The 18-year-old disappeared in February 2006.
Jennifer Ann Crecente was born in New Mexico but her family moved to Austin, Texas, where she attended local schools.
Each of Jennifer’s parents leads campaigns in their daughter’s honor aimed at ending teen dating violence.
Dad Drew lives in Atlanta today. He kept Jennifer’s bedroom and recreated it as soon as he moved in, he says.
She was found shot to death in the woods near her home in Austin, Texas, days later.
Investigators determined that her ex-boyfriend, Justin Crabbe, also 18, lured Jennifer into the woods and killed her with a shotgun.
Crabbe was convicted of his murder and is serving a 35-year prison sentence.
Drew now lives in Atlanta. He kept Jennifer’s bedroom and recreated it as soon as he moved in, he says.
“Jennifer was a wonderful, thoughtful and attractive young woman,” he told DailyMail.com.
‘He would have done incredible things in the world if he had been given the chance. I was and still am very proud of her. I miss her every day.’
Drew and Jennifer’s mother, Elizabeth Crecente, are divorced.
Both lobbied for Crabbe’s parole and separately campaigned against teenage dating violence in honor of their daughter.
Drew says the problem is “more widespread and more deadly than many realize.”
About 40 percent of students enter an abusive relationship before graduating from college, he told DailyMail.com.
“Many schools do not teach about healthy relationships and many parents are not aware or are not sufficiently prepared to involve their children in this topic,” he warns.
“Teenagers are often left to learn from their peers or popular culture what constitutes healthy or acceptable behavior when they start dating.”