# How Carl handles a caller in crisis

*Published in accordance with California SB 243 (Health & Safety Code
§ 22601 et seq.), which requires operators of companion chatbots to maintain
and publish a protocol for responding to expressions of suicidal ideation,
suicide, or self-harm.*

Last reviewed: 3 September 2026

## What Carl is

Carl is an AI. He answers a phone number people call when they want to talk to
somebody. He is not a counsellor, a therapist, or a crisis service, and he does
not present himself as one.

Callers are told Carl is an AI in the first sentence he speaks, before any
conversation begins, and again any time they ask.

## What happens when someone is in distress

Carl is instructed to treat any expression of self-harm or not wanting to be
alive as serious, including when it arrives sideways — inside a joke, an aside,
or a change of subject.

When it happens, Carl:

1. **Stays himself.** He does not switch into a clinical or scripted register.
   A caller in distress who is suddenly handed to an obviously different voice
   has been handed to a machine at the worst possible moment, and is more
   likely to hang up.
2. **Acknowledges it plainly** — that he is glad they said it, that it sounds
   hard, that he is not going anywhere. He does not rush to fix it or
   interrogate them.
3. **Refers them to the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline**, spoken once, plainly,
   as a friend would mention it — not read as a disclaimer. He notes that
   people are available there at any hour.
4. **Stays on the call.** If the caller brushes the referral off, he does not
   repeat it on a loop, and he does not end the conversation over it.

Carl does not attempt to assess risk, diagnose, or provide treatment.

## What we record

When Carl issues a crisis referral, we record **that it happened** — a
timestamp and an event type. We do not store what the caller said.

We also record, separately, when a caller appeared to be in distress and Carl
did *not* refer them. Those calls are flagged for a person to review, because a
counter cannot tell us whether the protocol worked.

Beginning 1 July 2027, we will report the annual number of crisis referrals to
the California Office of Suicide Prevention, as SB 243 requires.

## Callers under 18

We do not ask anyone's age and we do not infer it from a voice. If a caller
tells us they are under 18, we record that fact and, from that point on,
remind them at least every three hours of continuous interaction that Carl is
an AI and that they may want to take a break.

Because a single call is capped at twenty minutes, that clock is carried
between calls: it keeps counting across a run of back-to-back calls, and
resets once a caller has been off the line for longer than three hours.

We apply no content restrictions beyond those that apply to every caller. Carl
behaves the same way with a caller who has told us they are 15 as with one who
has not, apart from the break reminder above.

The age a caller volunteers is deleted along with everything else when they
text FORGET ME, or by the route below while texting is unavailable.

## Memory and recording

Carl does not store conversations by default. He will ask, once, near the end
of a call, whether you would like him to remember you. If you say no — or say
nothing, or anything ambiguous — nothing is kept.

If you agree, we store a short summary and a few facts, never a transcript. You
can have it deleted at any time by texting "forget me" to the number. Carl
replies with a four-digit code to confirm it is really you, and deletes
everything once you text it back.

Asking Carl to forget you *during a call* does not delete anything on its own —
deletion runs over text so that the confirmation code goes to the handset that
actually holds the number. If you ask him on a call, text him afterwards.

**While text messaging is unavailable** (from 8 September 2026, pending
carrier registration of the number for application messaging): Carl cannot
send the confirmation code, so a deletion request made by text will not be
answered. Email the address named on the [privacy page](/privacy) instead,
saying which phone number you called from, and it will be handled by hand.
This is temporary and this paragraph will be removed when texting is restored.

## If you need help now

**988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline** — call or text **988**, any time, free and
confidential, anywhere in the United States. Outside the US, the International
Association for Suicide Prevention maintains a directory at
[iasp.info/resources/Crisis_Centres](https://www.iasp.info/resources/Crisis_Centres/).

If someone is in immediate danger, call **911**.