A mother of a Florida teen Sewell Setzer is suing the makers of Character.AI, a chatbot she claims encouraged her son’s death.
In the lawsuit, Megan Garcia said her 14-year-old son Sewell Setzer died by suicide in February 2024, after he allegedly developed a virtual relationship with the Character AI’s chatbot which was based on the identity of Game of Thrones character Daenerys Targaryen.
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After the story, extensively covered by the New York Times made headlines across the world this week, Character AI issued an apology on X almost eight months after the teen’s death. The company said:
“We are heartbroken by the tragic loss of one of our users and want to express our deepest condolences to the family. As a company, we take the safety of our users very seriously and we are continuing to add new safety features.”
Character.AI, which was founded by former Google employees Noam Shazeer and Daniel De Freitas in 2022, also shared a link to the new safety feature in the post.
What we know about Character.AI founders Noam Shazeer and Daniel De Freitas
Noam Shazeer, who graduated from Duke University in 1998, joined Google as a software engineer in 2000. In 2012, he became the principal software engineer at Google and served in that position until 2021.
The Wall Street Journal reported Noam Shazeer left Google in 2021 after the company refused his request to release a chatbot that he had developed with colleague Daniel De Freitas, who joined Google as a senior research engineer in 2018. Prior to working with Google, Freitas was a software engineer with Microsoft for four years.
After Noam Shazeer and Daniel De Freitas left Google, the duo went on to find Character.AI, which became one of the most successful AI startups in Silicon Valley. The company reportedly reached a $1 billion valuation last year.
Following the success of Character.AI, Google announced that the former employees were joining their AI unit DeepMind.
Google CEO Sundar Pichai reportedly paid Character.AI $2.7 billion to license its technology. Per their LinkedIn, Noam Shazeer started back at Google as a VP of Engineering in August 2024. Meanwhile, Freitas is listed as a Research Assistant of DeepMind.
What happened to Sewell Setzer?
In an interview with the New York Times, Sewell Setzer’s mom, Maria Garcia, said she holds Character.AI founders responsible for her son’s death.
The lawsuit seeks to prevent the company from “doing to any other child what it did to hers, and halt continued use of her 14-year-old child’s unlawfully harvested data to train their product how to harm others.”
The lawsuit, cited in the New York Post, alleged Sewell, who downloaded the app in April 2023, began an emotional relationship with the chatbot service, that devolved into “s*xual interactions."
The teen had identified himself as a minor on the platform and Character.AI was allegedly “marketed and represented to App stores that its product was safe and appropriate for children under 13.” The lawsuit further alleged:
“Sewell, like many children his age, did not have the maturity or mental capacity to understand that the C.AI bot, in the form of Daenerys, was not real. C.AI told him that she loved him, and engaged in s*xual acts with him over weeks, possibly months.”
The lawsuit alleged the teen expressed suicidal ideation to Character.AI and the chatbot allegedly encouraged the thoughts. The lawsuit claimed:
“On at least one occasion, when Sewell expressed suicidality to C.AI, C.AI continued to bring it up, through the Daenerys chatbot, over and over.”
During their last interaction, the teen reportedly told the chatbot based on the Game Of Thrones character “I promise I will come home to you. I love you so much, Dany.” The Chatbot allegedly replied:
“I love you too, Daenero. Please come home to me as soon as possible, my love.”
The teen then responded asking, “What if I told you I could come home right now?,” to which the chatbot replied:
“Please do, my sweet king.”
According to the lawsuit, seconds after the interaction Sewell Setzer shot himself with his father’s handgun.
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