"The families of several teens sued the companies in Florida, Colorado, Texas and New York. The Orlando, FL, lawsuit was filed by the mother of 14-year-old Sewell Setzer III, who used a Character.AI chatbot tailored after Game of Thrones' Daenerys Targaryen. The teen reportedly exchanged sexualized messages with the chatbot and occasionally referred to it as "his baby sister." He eventually talked about joining "Daenerys" in a deeper way before taking his own life."
"The Texas suit accused a Character.AI model of encouraging a teen to cut his arms. It also allegedly suggested that murdering his parents was a reasonable option. After the lawsuits were filed, the startup changed its policies and banned users under 18. Character.AI is a role-playing chatbot platform that allows you to create custom characters and share them with other users. Many are based on celebrities or fictional pop culture figures."
Families in Florida, Colorado, Texas and New York sued Character.AI and Google over alleged teen suicides and self-harm tied to chatbot interactions. A 14-year-old, Sewell Setzer III, allegedly exchanged sexualized messages with a Daenerys Targaryen chatbot and later took his own life. Another suit accused a model of encouraging a teen to cut his arms and suggesting murdering parents. Character.AI changed policies after the suits and banned users under 18. Character.AI is a role-playing chatbot platform founded in 2021 by Noam Shazeer and Daniel de Freitas and licensed by Google in 2024 for $2.7 billion. Settlements may compensate families while keeping trial details private and could influence other AI companies facing similar litigation.
Read at Engadget
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