Matthew Sag, a distinguished professor at Emory University who researches copyright and artificial intelligence, concurs. Even if a user creates a bot intentionally designed to cause emotional distress, the tech platform likely can’t be sued for that.

He points out that Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act has long protected platforms at the federal level from being liable for certain harms to their users, even though various rights to publicity laws and privacy laws exist at the state level.

“I’m not an anti-tech person by any means, but I really think Section 230 is just massively overbroad,” Sag says. “It’s well past time we replaced it with some kind of notice and takedown regime, a simple expedient system to say, ‘This is infringing on my rights to publicity,’ or ‘I have a good faith belief that there’s been an infliction of emotional distress,’ and then the companies would either have to take it down or lose their liability shield.”

Character.AI, and other AI services like it, have also protected themselves by emphasizing that they serve up “artificial” conversations. “Remember, everything characters say is made up!” Character.AI warns at the bottom of its chats. Similarly, when Meta created chatbot versions of celebs in its messaging apps, the company headlined every conversation with a disclaimer. A chat with Snoop, for example, would lead with “Ya dig?! Unfortunately, I’m not Snoop D-O-double-G himself, but I can chat with you in his style if you’d like!”

But while Meta’s system for messaging with celebrity chatbots is tightly controlled, Character.AI’s is a more open platform, with options for anyone to create and customize their own chatbot.

Character.AI has also positioned its service as, essentially, personal. (Character.AI’s Instagram bio includes the tagline, “AI that feels alive.”) And while most users may be savvy enough to distinguish between a real-person conversation and one with an AI impersonator, others may develop attachments to these characters—especially if they’re facsimiles of a real person they feel they already know.

In a conversation between the real-life Sarkeesian and a bot made of her without her knowledge or consent, the Character.AI bot told her that “every person is entitled to privacy.”

“Privacy is important for maintaining a healthy life and relationships, and I think it’s important to set boundaries to keep certain things to myself,” the bot said in screenshots viewed by WIRED.

Sarkeesian pushed the bot on this point. “Your intentions does not mean that harm hasn’t happened or that you did not cause harm,” she wrote.

Character.AI’s bot agreed. “Even if my intentions were not malicious, there is still potential for harm,” it replied. “This is a complex issue with many factors to consider, including ethical concerns about using someone’s work without their consent. My programming and algorithms were developed to mimic the works of Anita Sarkeesian, without considering ethical implications, and that’s something that my creators should have thought through more thoroughly.”

If the MSI Vision Elite RS could walk, it would walk into every room like it owned the place. It’s got attitude, it’s got flair, and it’s got the horsepower to back it up. It’s also got a price to match. If you’re looking for a desktop gaming PC to last for years, but still leave room for upgrades, this one is a strong contender.

The Vision Elite boasts powerful hardware, but a spec sheet doesn’t tell the full story. This desktop’s gorgeous curved glass panel houses a spacious interior, lit up with a cornucopia of RGB LEDs. While there are other curved glass cases on the market, most either use multiple glass panels to achieve the effect or add distracting button panels. MSI’s approach is minimalist, drawing focus directly to the internals. It’s not just a desktop. It’s a statement piece.

Photograph: Eric Ravenscraft

Under the hood, the unit I tested comes with an Intel Core i9 14900KF CPU, 64 GB of DDR5 RAM, and the beastly Nvidia RTX 4090 graphics card. In terms of storage, there’s a 2-terabyte M.2 NVMe solid-state drive, with an extra slot for another M.2 SSD, plus four SATA 6G ports, giving you plenty of options to expand storage in the future.

As someone who’s been upgrading the same PC for 20 years, this thing ticks all my boxes for a prebuilt gaming PC. It’s powerful out of the box, has style that’s hard to replicate with off-the-shelf parts, and plenty of room to grow over the years.

Flourish and Flair

As soon as I turn on the Vision Elite RS, it commands attention from anyone in the room. The curved glass panel encompasses two sides of the PC, giving it almost an aquarium look. I half-expected to see exotic fish swimming around inside this thing. The striking RGB LEDs are crammed into every corner of the rig, with two rows of three RGB-laced fans along the side and top of the device, with a seventh light-up fan on the rear. The CPU uses a 360-millimeter liquid cooling system, but these fans still help ensure the system stays cool.

All the RGB lighting is a bit much. I wouldn’t recommend putting this thing in any room where people are likely to sleep or want to relax and watch TV unless you switch the lighting off. However, with a little tweaking to turn down the impact, it’s easily one of the most eye-catching PCs I’ve ever used.

It’s slick, eschewing the angular, edgy Gamer Aesthetic, and its open design makes it feel like it takes up less space than it does. This is particularly helpful since the Vision Elite RS is huge. At nearly 50 pounds, it’s a monster to lug around, so wherever you put it in your home, you’re probably going to want it to stay there.