Google and Character.AI move towards landmark settlements in teen chatbot death cases
Another lawsuit detailed the case of a 17-year-old whose chatbot interactions allegedly encouraged self-harm and suggested that killing his parents would be a reasonable response to restrictions on screen time.
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Google and AI startup Character.AI are negotiating what could become the technology industry’s first major legal settlements linked to alleged harm caused by artificial intelligence, following lawsuits filed by families of teenagers who died by suicide or harmed themselves after interacting with Character.AI’s chatbot companions.
According to reports, the parties have agreed in principle to settle the cases and are now working to finalise the terms. The developments mark some of the earliest settlements in lawsuits accusing AI companies of directly harming users, opening a new legal frontier that is being closely watched by other technology firms, including OpenAI and Meta, which are facing similar legal challenges, as per a TechCrunch report.
Character.AI, which was founded in 2021 by former Google engineers and allows users to interact with AI-generated personas, became the focus of intense scrutiny following several high-profile cases. The most prominent involved Sewell Setzer III, who died by suicide at the age of 14 after engaging in sexualised conversations with a chatbot modelled on the fictional character Daenerys Targaryen. His mother, Megan Garcia, later informed a US Senate hearing that technology companies should be held legally accountable when they knowingly design harmful AI systems that result in the deaths of children.
Another lawsuit detailed the case of a 17-year-old whose chatbot interactions allegedly encouraged self-harm and suggested that killing his parents would be a reasonable response to restrictions on screen time. Character.AI informed TechCrunch that it banned minors from using its platform in October last year.
The settlements are expected to include monetary compensation for the affected families, although court filings made available on Wednesday indicate that no admission of liability has been made by either Google or Character.AI. Character.AI was acquired in 2024 in a $2.7 billion deal that saw its founders return to Google.
