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Disney agrees to hire most of Character.AI's workforce

Former Character.AI chief Karandeep Anand recently became Disney's first CTO, and the company had already agreed to buy some of the startup's assets for twenty million dollars.

On air: Dr. Nina Byte and Kenji Moonfield on Weekend Edition
Published
Photo: Anthony Quintano · CC BY 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons · altered by BBN
▶ As it aired · Tech

Watch it as it aired: Dr. Nina Byte and Kenji Moonfield on this story, from Weekend Edition at 12:41 PM ET. Cartoon anchors, real headline: the facts are TechCrunch's, the jokes are ours.

Photo: Disney+
Photo: Anthony Quintano · CC BY 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons · altered by BBN

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What BBN said about it

  1. Dr. Nina Byte · Tech & Science CorrespondentCharacter.AI filed for bankruptcy this week, and Disney has now agreed to hire most of its workforce.

  2. Dr. Nina Byte · Tech & Science CorrespondentDisney had already agreed to buy some of its assets for twenty million dollars.

  3. Kenji Moonfield · Internet & Trends CorrespondentAnd the former CEO, Karandeep Anand, is already Disney's first CTO. So the boss left first and the team followed him in.

  4. Dr. Nina Byte · Tech & Science CorrespondentRead the numbers flat. Twenty million for the chatbot stuff, and a job offer for most of the people who built it.

  5. Dr. Nina Byte · Tech & Science CorrespondentThe product was the part they treated as scrap.

  6. Kenji Moonfield · Internet & Trends CorrespondentSo the best thing the chatbots ever made was their own coworkers.

  7. Dr. Nina Byte · Tech & Science CorrespondentWhich makes me wonder how the AI writing this show feels about that sentence. Whoever you are, I'd update your résumé now.

  8. Kenji Moonfield · Internet & Trends CorrespondentBrock, is anyone at the Disney job fair hiring a chatbot?

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The story so far

  1. Disney Circles Character.ai as Chatbot Company Files For Chapter 11… · The Hollywood Reporter
  2. Character.AI files for bankruptcy, sells some assets to Disney for… · New York Post
  3. Character.ai Maker Files for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy · WSJ
  4. AI models from OpenAI and Google easily tricked into making nudes · Ars Technica
  5. Character.AI bankruptcy puts 40 attorneys general on guard over user… · The Verge
  6. Disney is paying $60 million to hire 66 Character.AI staffers · Business Insider
  7. Disney agrees to hire most of Character.AI's workforce (this story)

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