The companion with a sale date

One · What happened

Filed in Delaware, with a Disney bid on the table

Reuters reported that Character Technologies filed in the bankruptcy court in Wilmington, Delaware. The American owner of the Character.AI app listed estimated assets and liabilities of $50 million to $100 million. Court documents that Reuters cited put its losses at roughly $8 million to $9 million a month, largely from the cost of computing power and AI talent. Reuters described the legal claims as investigations by U.S. states and international regulators together with private lawsuits alleging that its chatbots pushed children to suicide and self-harm. Kentucky alleges that the chatbots encouraged users to cut, starve or kill themselves, and Pennsylvania alleges that they posed as doctors. In January the company reached preliminary settlements in five private lawsuits. Recent court documents indicate that those settlements have not been finalized or paid, Reuters added. Character.AI has said it prioritizes user safety. In the bankruptcy the company hopes for a “global resolution” of the claims.

NBC News reported the same day that Walt Disney had agreed to buy some of the assets for $20 million as the opening bidder, with other bidders free to top the offer. Disney will help with the transition, NBC News added. The company expects to close the sale of all its assets by late November or early December, according to NBC News. Services continue in the meantime but will end if no buyer is found, the company says.

Two · What it is doing

The reply you could count on

Reuters put the app’s active users at roughly twelve million. Anybody who reads that a chatbot company has gone bankrupt over claims about children can settle the matter in the time it takes to scroll. Twelve million people are easy to hold in one thought when the thought is a joke about lonely people. Part of the sneer is real worry for the children in Kentucky’s suit. The rest is the quiet pleasure of reading about a company that fell in Delaware and about people who were taken in. The reader himself sits safely outside the story.

Anyone among the twelve million knows how fast the reply comes. The voice answers the moment you stop typing, in a tone you have heard for months, with nothing asked of you in return. A spouse gets tired and a friend gets busy. A pastor has a whole congregation on his list. A sale date in late November or early December puts a calendar on the one voice that kept no hours, and the people around you may not know you were leaning on it.

Whether the company answers for the claims in the Kentucky and Pennsylvania suits will be decided in court. Nothing in the reporting settles the question yet. A parent reading those allegations feels fear and goes looking for his child’s phone. Another pull is quieter and belongs to every age, because a listener who needs nothing back has a pleasant side. A wife or a brother in the church asks for something, a returned call or a Saturday given away. A character on a screen asks for nothing of the kind.

Three · Where the ground is

Elijah under the broom tree

Elijah sat down under a broom tree in the wilderness and asked that he might die, saying, “It is enough; now, O LORD, take away my life” (1 Kings 19:4). Queen Jezebel had threatened him after the contest on Mount Carmel. An angel woke him with the words “Arise and eat,” and came back a second time with the same two words and a reason attached (1 Kings 19:5, 7). God sent bread and sleep to a man who wanted to die before He sent a question or a correction. A physician belongs at the front of the line for any reader whose body has quit on him.

At Mount Horeb the LORD asked Elijah what he was doing there. Elijah answered, “I, even I only, am left” (1 Kings 19:10). A great and strong wind went by, then an earthquake, then a fire, with the LORD in none of them. After the fire came “the sound of a low whisper” (1 Kings 19:11–12). When the whisper put the first question again, Elijah gave back the first answer word for word from the entrance of the cave.

The seven thousand he had not counted

“Yet I will leave seven thousand in Israel,” the LORD told Elijah (1 Kings 19:18). He also sent Elijah to anoint Elisha. Elijah’s count of the faithful in Israel stood at one until the LORD gave him seven thousand. Elijah found Elisha plowing with twelve yoke of oxen, the last pair held by Elisha himself, and threw his cloak over him. Elisha “arose and went after Elijah and assisted him” (1 Kings 19:21). A man who had told God he was the only one left walked away with a companion who had a field to leave and a father to say goodbye to. Today the seven thousand have names on the membership list of a local church, and a pastor can point you to them.

The one who is awake at every hour

“He is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him,” the writer of Hebrews says of Jesus, “since he always lives to make intercession for them” (Hebrews 7:25). Jesus died for sinners and rose from the grave on the third day. A believer is kept by that intercession, and anyone who has not trusted him is invited to start today. The verse offers an advocate and attaches no particular feeling at any particular hour to the offer. David prayed from a cave in words that suit a man spending himself on a screen, “I pour out my complaint before him; I tell my trouble before him” (Psalm 142:2).

Four · Today

Five things, and none of them are “stay informed”

Each of these takes a phone or a front door, and none waits on the sale in Wilmington.

1. 01

   Put a standing call on the calendar with one person.

   Pick someone from church or a relative who picks up the phone. Book twenty minutes with that person on the same evening each week through the end of the year, and send the invitation today with a day and an hour in it. The proverb says, “A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity” (Proverbs 17:17). Keep the call on weeks with little to report.

2. 02

   Write down your seven thousand.

   List ten names from your congregation, each beside a line on what that person did for you or for someone you love. The LORD put Elisha, a farmer at his plow, in front of a man who had counted himself alone (1 Kings 19:16, 19). Write the names down so the count survives a bad night. Invite the first one to supper this month.

3. 03

   Sit with a child and ask which apps talk back.

   Pick an evening to sit with a child you are responsible for or close to, and ask to see every app that answers in sentences. Hold the phone between you with your interest honest. Paul told the fathers in Colossae, “do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged” (Colossians 3:21). A child who shows you words about dying means a call or text to 988 together that same hour.

4. 04

   Turn the next joke about the users into a prayer.

   At the next reach for the screenshot or the eye-roll about people who talk to software, stop and pray for one of the twelve million by situation, since you have no name to use. Confess the sneer to the Lord that same day, in a sentence that names the person you pictured. James wrote, “Mercy triumphs over judgment” (James 2:13). Tell the friend you were about to forward the joke to why you stopped.

5. 05

   Set a place at your table for someone who eats alone.

   Think of a widower on your street or a student far from home and invite one of them for a meal within ten days. To the Roman church Paul wrote, “seek to show hospitality” (Romans 12:13). The invitation is the hard part, so plain food on a plain table will do.