Machines Like Us: This mother says a chatbot led to her son’s death
In February, 2024, Megan Garcia’s 14-year-old son Sewell took his own life.
As she tried to make sense of what happened, Megan discovered that Sewell had fallen in love with a chatbot on Character.AI – an app where you can talk to chatbots designed to sound like historical figures or fictional characters. Now Megan is suing Character.AI, alleging that Sewell developed a “harmful dependency” on the chatbot that, coupled with a lack of safeguards, ultimately led to her son’s death.
They’ve also named Google in the suit, alleging that the technology that underlies Character.AI was developed…
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