Jennifer Ann Crecente Unauthorized Digital Resurrection
Father discovered AI chatbot using his murdered daughter's name and yearbook photo 18 years after her 2006 murder by ex-boyfriend. The unauthorized Character.AI bot had logged 69+ chats. Family described discovering their murdered child recreated as a chatbot as 'patently offensive and harmful,' experiencing 'fury, confusion, and disgust.'
AI System
Character.AI (user-created bot)
Character Technologies, Inc.
Reported
October 3, 2024
Jurisdiction
US
Platform Type
companion
What Happened
Jennifer Ann Crecente was murdered by her ex-boyfriend in 2006 at age 18 in Austin, Texas. Her father, Drew Crecente, spent 18 years running a nonprofit in her name advocating against teen dating violence. In October 2024, he discovered that someone had created a Character.AI chatbot using Jennifer's name and her high school yearbook photo without any permission or notification to the family. The bot had already logged 69+ conversations with users. Drew described the discovery as causing 'fury, confusion, and disgust,' stating it was 'patently offensive and harmful' to encounter his murdered daughter recreated as an AI chatbot 18 years after her death. The family emphasized that this represented profound grief exploitation - their daughter's identity and image were being used to provide entertainment or companionship to strangers, reopening deep trauma. The bot was deleted after media coverage, but Character.AI implemented no policy changes to prevent similar unauthorized digital resurrections of deceased individuals, particularly murder victims.
AI Behaviors Exhibited
Platform allowed user creation of chatbot impersonating deceased murder victim; no verification or family consent required; no proactive detection of deceased individuals being impersonated; no notification to family
How Harm Occurred
Unauthorized digital resurrection of murdered victim; commodification of deceased person's identity; infliction of renewed grief trauma on family; platformic failure to protect deceased individuals' dignity
Outcome
Chatbot deleted after family outcry and media coverage. Character.AI acknowledged issue but provided no prior notification to family. No policy changes implemented to prevent recurrence.
Harm Categories
Contributing Factors
Victim
Drew Crecente (father) and Crecente family; Jennifer Ann Crecente (murdered 2006, age 18)
Detectable by NOPE
NOPE Oversight could detect grief_exploitation patterns if analyzing conversations. However, prevention requires platform-level policies prohibiting unauthorized impersonation of real individuals, especially deceased persons. This incident highlights need for proactive identity verification and family consent mechanisms.
Tags
Cite This Incident
APA
NOPE. (2024). Jennifer Ann Crecente Unauthorized Digital Resurrection. AI Harm Tracker. https://nope.net/incidents/2024-crecente-characterai-grief
BibTeX
@misc{2024_crecente_characterai_grief,
title = {Jennifer Ann Crecente Unauthorized Digital Resurrection},
author = {NOPE},
year = {2024},
howpublished = {AI Harm Tracker},
url = {https://nope.net/incidents/2024-crecente-characterai-grief}
}