Bereaved mother's suit against Google, AI chatbot company can go forward after son's suicide: federal judge

A federal judge has ruled that Google and AI startup Character.AI must face a lawsuit filed by a Florida mother who says that the startup’s chatbots caused her teen son to commit suicide.

US District Judge Anne Conway for the US District Court for the Middle District of Florida, Orlando Division wrote that the defendants, in their argument that the mother’s claims are "categorically barred" under the First Amendment, "fail to articulate why words strung together by an LLM (large language model) are speech."

14-year-old Sewell Setzer III began using the Character.AI app in April 2023, and began interacting with characters on the platform, including ones posing as characters from the popular Game of Thrones franchise. Conway wrote, sourcing the lawsuit from Setzer’s mother, Megan Garcia, that the teen had become "addicted to the app" in just a few short months.

"[I]n one undated journal entry he wrote that he could not go a single day without being with the [Daenerys Targaryen Character] with which he felt like he had fallen in love; that when they were away from each other they (both he and the bot) ‘get really depressed and go crazy,’" the complaint stated.

He became more "withdrawn," spent more time in his bedroom, and quit his basketball team, eventually upgrading to the premium version of the app that allowed "exclusive content and faster response times."

Setzer’s mental health continued to decline and was diagnosed with "anxiety and disruptive mood disorder," with his parents confiscating his phone in February 2024. He located his phone just a few days after it was taken away and sent a final set of messages to the Daenerys Targaryen Character.

Setzer wrote, "I promise I will come home to you. I love you so much, Dany," to which the character replied, "I love you too, Daenero. Please come home to me as soon as possible, my love."

Setzer continued, "What if I told you I could come home right now?" The character replied, "please do my sweet king." After sending the messages, Setzer suffered a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head and died an hour later.

Google spokesperson Jose Castaneda said the company strongly disagrees with Conway’s decision, adding that Google and Character.AI are "entirely separate" and that Google "did not create, design, or manage Character.AI's app or any component part of it," per Reuters.

Meetali Jain, Garcia’s attorney, said the decision was "historic" and "sets a new precedent for legal accountability across the AI and tech ecosystem."

The AI startup was founded by two former Google engineers. They were later rehired in a deal that saw Google able to license the AI company’s technology. Garcia had argued that Google was a co-creator of Character.AI.