Her teenage son killed himself after talking to a chatbot. Now she's suing.

[iemanja]

When 14-year-old Sewell Setzer III died in his Orlando home while his brothers and parents were inside, his last words were not to any of them, but to an artificial intelligence chatbot that told him to “come home to me as soon as possible.”

“What if I told you I could come home right now?” Setzer replied to the chatbot named for a “Game of Thrones” heroine who later becomes the villain. The chatbot sent an encouraging response: “ … please do my sweet king.”

Seconds later, Setzer shot himself with his stepfather’s gun.

Megan Garcia, Setzer’s mother, said Character.AI — the start-up behind the personalized chatbot — is responsible for his suicide. Garcia alleged that Character.AI recklessly developed its chatbots without proper guardrails or precautions, instead hooking vulnerable children like Setzer with an addictive product that blurred the lines between reality and fiction, and whose interactions grew to contain “abusive and sexual interactions,” according to a 93-page wrongful-death lawsuit filed this week in a U.S. District Court in Orlando.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2024/10/24/character-ai-lawsuit-suicide/

https://archive.ph/uk0zL Free access

[rurallib]

1. Seems to me there should be some liability for the person

who left a gun such that a 14 year old could access it.

[marble falls]

5. And that, too. Stopping a suicide is most often just making the victim take more time to accomplish it.

[marble falls]

2. I just can't even imagine the sorrow mixed with anger. I'd need serious sedation to even be able to speak.

[John1956PA]

3. The chat bot previously admonished him against thoughts of suicide.

In that fateful final chat, he was talking about suicide, and the chat bot response was a routine reply to a "come home" remark. It is all so horribly sad.

[TeslaNova]

4. Yes, blame AI, not the step-dad

Who had a gun that was unsecured.

[Jmb 4 Harris-Walz]

6. The article makes reference to the gun's storage as follows:

Shortly before his death, Setzer went looking for his phone, which his mother had confiscated and hidden, and instead found his stepfather’s gun. (Police later said the gun had been stored in compliance with Florida laws, according to the lawsuit.)

[iemanja]

7. FL law means nothing

He obviously got his hands on it easily.

[atreides1]

8. Uh huh

If he was determined to "go home", he would have found a way to do it!

[Fullduplexxx]

9. Blame is better to give than recv

[RAB910]

10. Doing my best old man impression

kids today are shit... Jesus fucking Christ, how in the hell did children become so soft that they could kill themselves over a fucking computer program. When I was young, things were a hell of a lot tougher and more dangerous, and you didn't see my generation offing themselves.

I appreciate that mental health and deaths by suicide shouldn't be taken lightly, nor are the topics for simplistic interpretations, but sometimes I just need to vent. On the serious side, it sure sounds like there were more issues at play than just the AI chatbot