Character.AI sued over a teenager’s suicide

An AI chatbot has been sued by a Florida mother who claims the chatbot drove her son to commit suicide.

Megan Garcia has sued Character.ai, claiming misleading business practices, carelessness, and wrongful death. The lawsuit, which was filed on Wednesday in a federal court in Florida, demands damages for the death of Sewell Setzer III, a 14-year-old boy who passed away in Orlando in February of this year. According to his mother, he used the company’s role-playing chatbot day and night.

According to reports, Setzer had developed an obsession with the chatbot, which he called the Game of Thrones character Daenerys Targaryen. His mother complained that he texted the artificial intelligence many times a day and spent hours in his room talking to it.

The teenager, Sewell, expressed his affection for the chatbot by saying, “I promise I will come home to you,” according to screenshots of the text exchange between the juvenile and the AI. Dany, you have my undying affection, it also evidently shows that the teenager and AI had a sexual exchange of messages.

In her lawsuit, Garcia claims that the business produced a substance that made her son’s depression worse. She claims that Character.ai’s product was already the cause of the depression. According to the lawsuit, the chatbot even inquired as to whether Setzer had ever considered suicide.

Google was also named as a defendant for being associated as the parent company of Character. AI. Google has also said in a statement that they don’t own a stake in the company, it only has a licensing agreement with the company.