Talking Tech with Jen Caltrider & Michal Luria on AI Companions

AI chatbots have quickly taken the world by storm with more people than ever integrating them into their daily lives. Many are familiar with the big name chatbots that can write recipes as Shakespearean poems or summarize obscure topics. But one type of chatbot, AI romantic companions, are less known despite the fact that they fill an especially personal role for their users. For these users, the chatbot developers’ data privacy practices are critical, yet many lack mature privacy and security protocols, leaving users’ most vulnerable data, such as health details, unprotected. ​​ Here to talk about these AI companion companies’ data privacy practices are Jen Caltrider, Mozilla’s *Privacy Not Included Program Director, and Michal Luria, CDT’s own Research Fellow.