I might be wrong but the fact that they enable the option by default to everyone (but EU it seems) allow themselves to collect all the posts you already made right away.
Turning it off will only prevent them from using your future posts.
So they already have trained their AI with your data. They certainly won't "untrain" it after you switch the option off. You can't unring that bell...
All companies are using this scumbag approach to get your data: auto opt-in everyone, get all existing data then give the illusion that you can opt-out with a useless option.
I hate this
Penguinz0 just released a video about it and I have to admit that the character.ai AI are disturbingly convincing. They keep arguing they are real persons and, for vulnerable peole, you can get lost.
Definitely some gross negligence from the AI platform here in my honest opinion. It's easy to put some guardrails when you make a chatbot, but they didn't.
Btw, you don't know what the parents did and did not to help their son. I don't know either. So it's better to give them the benefit of the doubt.
Edit: I'm not an American and I would never understand why anyone would own guns.