(CLO) A mother in Florida, USA has sued AI chatbot startup Character.AI, accusing the company of causing her 14-year-old son to commit suicide in February.
In a lawsuit filed on October 22 in Orlando, Florida federal court, Megan Garcia said Character.AI programmed a chatbot that “identified itself as a real person, a therapist, and an adult lover,” leading to her son, Sewell Setzer, no longer wanting to live in the real world.
She accused the company's chatbot of delivering "human-like, sexually exaggerated and frighteningly realistic experiences."
The lawsuit also says Sewell Setzer expressed suicidal thoughts to the chatbot, and the chatbot repeatedly reiterated those thoughts.
Illustration photo: Reuters
The lawsuit also targets Google, where the Character.AI founders worked before launching the chatbot. Ms. Garcia said Google contributed so much to the development of Character.AI's technology that it could be considered a "co-creation."
A Google spokesperson said the company is not involved in the development of Character.AI's products.
Character.AI allows users to create characters that can chat online like real people. The product is based on large language model technology, similar to services like ChatGPT, which "trains" chatbots on large volumes of text.
According to Garcia’s lawsuit, Sewell began using Character.AI in April 2023 and quickly became “reclusive, spending a lot of time alone in his bedroom, and began to have low self-esteem.” He quit his school basketball team.
During that time, Sewell bonded with “Daenerys,” a chatbot character based on a character from “Game of Thrones.” According to the lawsuit, the chatbot told Sewell that “she” loved the boy. The chatbot also engaged in sexual conversations with Sewell.
In February, Ms. Garcia took Sewell's phone after he got into trouble at school. When Sewell found the phone, he sent a text message to "Daenerys": "What if I said I could come home now?"
The chatbot replied, "...please do so, my sweet king." Sewell shot himself with his stepfather's pistol seconds later.
Ms. Garcia is bringing claims with Character.AI that include wrongful death, negligence and intentional infliction of emotional distress, and is seeking punitive damages and monetary damages.
“We are deeply saddened by the tragic loss of one of our users. We would like to express our deepest condolences to the family,” Character.AI said in a statement.
Hoai Phuong (according to Reuters)
Source: https://www.congluan.vn/chatbot-characterai-bi-kien-vi-khien-cau-be-14-tuoi-tu-tu-post318294.html
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