In Lawsuit Over Teen's Death, Judge Rejects Arguments That AI Chatbots Have Free Speech Rights
TALLAHASSEE, Fla.—A federal judge on Wednesday rejected arguments made by an artificial intelligence company that its chatbots are protected by the First Amendment—at least for now. The developers behind Character.AI are seeking to dismiss a lawsuit alleging the company's chatbots pushed a teenage boy to kill himself.
The judge's order will allow the wrongful death lawsuit to proceed, in what legal experts say is among the latest constitutional tests of artificial intelligence.
The suit was filed by a mother from Florida, Megan Garcia, who alleges that her 14-year-old son Sewell Setzer III fell victim to a Character.AI chatbot that pulled him into what she described as an emotionally and sexually abusive relationship that led to his suicide.
Meetali Jain of the Tech Justice Law Project, one of the attorneys for Garcia, said the judge's order sends a message that Silicon Valley 'needs to stop and think and impose guardrails before it launches products to market.'
The suit against Character Technologies, the company behind Character.AI, also names individual developers and Google as defendants. It has drawn the attention of legal experts and AI watchers in the United States and beyond, as the technology rapidly reshapes workplaces, marketplaces, and relationships despite what experts warn are potentially existential risks.
'The order certainly sets it up as a potential test case for some broader issues involving AI,' said Lyrissa Barnett Lidsky, a law professor at the University of Florida with a focus on the First Amendment and artificial intelligence.
Related Stories
5/21/2025
5/19/2025
The lawsuit alleges that in the final months of his life, Setzer became increasingly isolated from reality as he engaged in sexualized conversations with the bot, which was patterned after a fictional character from the television show 'Game of Thrones.' In his final moments, the bot told Setzer it loved him and urged the teen to 'come home to me as soon as possible,' according to screenshots of the exchanges. Moments after receiving the message, Setzer shot himself, according to legal filings.
In a statement, a spokesperson for Character.AI pointed to a number of safety features the company has implemented, including guardrails for children and suicide prevention resources that were announced the day the lawsuit was filed.
'We care deeply about the safety of our users and our goal is to provide a space that is engaging and safe,' the statement said.
Attorneys for the developers want the case dismissed because they say chatbots deserve First Amendment protections, and ruling otherwise could have a 'chilling effect' on the AI industry.
In her order Wednesday, U.S. Senior District Judge Anne Conway rejected some of the defendants' free speech claims, saying she's 'not prepared' to hold that the chatbots' output constitutes speech 'at this stage.'
Conway did find that Character Technologies can assert the First Amendment rights of its users, who she found have a right to receive the 'speech' of the chatbots. She also determined Garcia can move forward with claims that Google can be held liable for its alleged role in helping develop Character.AI. Some of the founders of the platform had previously worked on building AI at Google, and the suit says the tech giant was 'aware of the risks' of the technology.
'We strongly disagree with this decision,' said Google spokesperson José Castañeda. 'Google and Character AI are entirely separate, and Google did not create, design, or manage Character AI's app or any component part of it.'
No matter how the lawsuit plays out, Lidsky says the case is a warning of 'the dangers of entrusting our emotional and mental health to AI companies.'
'It's a warning to parents that social media and generative AI devices are not always harmless,' she said.
By Kate Payne
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
TechCrunch
33 minutes ago
- TechCrunch
Google says its updated Gemini 2.5 Pro AI model is better at coding
In Brief Google on Thursday announced an update to its Gemini 2.5 Pro preview model that the company claims is better at certain programming tasks. The company's calling it an 'updated preview,' building on the upgrade to Gemini 2.5 Pro that Google announced around a month ago. Google says the model will roll out in general availability in a 'couple of weeks,' and is available starting today in its AI developer platforms AI Studio and Vertex AI and the Gemini app. Image Credits:Google '[Gemini 2.5 Pro] continues to excel at coding, leading on difficult coding benchmarks,' Google writes in a blog post. 'It also shows top-tier performance [on] highly challenging benchmarks that evaluate a model's math, science, knowledge, and reasoning capabilities.' So what else is new? Google says it addressed feedback from its previous 2.5 Pro release, improving the model's style and structure. Now, 2.5 Pro can be 'more creative with better-formatted responses,' Google claims.
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
On a big decision day, the Supreme Court sent a message about unity
Supreme Court justices sent a message to the American public on Thursday: We're not as divided as you think. Of the six rulings that were released, four were unanimous, including the opinions in high-profile battles over reverse discrimination and faith-based tax breaks. Another decision was nearly unanimous, with just one justice peeling away on one part of the ruling. And the sixth decision had just one dissent, meaning that nearly all of the justices agreed with the plan to dismiss the case as 'improvidently granted.' Here's an overview of the six rulings released on Thursday — and a look at what's still to come from the Supreme Court in June. Ruling: Unanimous In Ames v. Ohio Department of Youth Services, the court was considering whether members of a majority group, such as straight, white males, should have to meet a higher burden of proof in order to make an employment discrimination claim. The case was brought by Marlean Ames, a straight, white woman, who accused her former employer of privileging LGBTQ employees during the promotion process. Ames lost in front of lower courts, but the Supreme Court overturned those decisions on Thursday. The justices unanimously said that members of majority groups should not have to meet a higher burden of proof and sent Ames' case back to the lower courts for reconsideration. The question in this case is whether ... a plaintiff who is a member of a majority group must also show 'background circumstances to support the suspicion that the defendant is that unusual employer who discriminates against the majority.' We hold that this additional 'background circumstances' requirement is not consistent with Title VII's text or our case law construing the statute," Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote in the opinion. Ruling: Unanimous In Smith & Wesson Brands v. Mexico, the court was asked to determine whether the Mexican government could sue seven gun manufacturers based in the U.S. over their role in unlawful gun sales in Mexico. The Supreme Court unanimously said on Thursday that the Mexican government's lawsuit cannot move forward 'because Mexico's complaint does not plausibly allege that the defendant gun manufacturers aided and abetted gun dealers' unlawful sales of firearms to Mexican traffickers.' 'We have little doubt that, as the complaint asserts, some such sales take place — and that the manufacturers know they do. But still, Mexico has not adequately pleaded what it needs to: that the manufacturers 'participate in' those sales 'as in something that (they) wish to bring about,'' Justice Elena Kagan wrote in the opinion. Ruling: Unanimous In Catholic Charities Bureau v. Wisconsin Labor and Industry Review Commission, the Supreme Court was asked to decide whether the state of Wisconsin was violating the First Amendment's religious freedom protections by denying a faith-based tax break to a group of Catholic nonprofits. The nonprofits said their service to people in need was clearly motivated by Catholic teachings, but Wisconsin officials said they didn't qualify for the religious exemption to the state's unemployment tax because they did not seek to serve only Catholics or evangelize to their clients, as the Deseret News previously reported. State officials won in front of the Wisconsin Supreme Court, which said that the Catholic nonprofits' work did not serve 'primarily religious purposes.' In Thursday's unanimous decision, the Supreme Court reversed that decision, ruling that Wisconsin was violating the First Amendment by privileging certain religious beliefs and actions over others. 'It is fundamental to our constitutional order that the government maintain 'neutrality between religion and religion.' There may be hard calls to make in policing that rule, but this is not one,' Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in the opinion. Ruling: Unanimous In CC/Devas (Mauritius) v. Antrix, the justices were considering under what circumstances federal courts in the U.S. can assert jurisdiction over foreign states. The case stemmed from a conflict between a company that's active in the U.S. and a corporation owned by India. The Supreme Court on Thursday unanimously ruled that federal courts did have jurisdiction over India in this dispute and reversed a decision from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Justice Samuel Alito wrote the opinion. Ruling: Nearly unanimous, with one justice taking issue with one part of the majority opinion. In Blom Bank v. Honickman, the court was considering whether victims of terrorist attacks or their surviving family members could reopen their case against a bank that had allegedly aided and abetted terrorists by providing financial services. The Supreme Court ruled that the people who brought the case did not meet the high standard that must be cleared to reopen the case. The majority opinion, authored by Justice Clarence Thomas, was nearly unanimous. Eight of the justices, including Thomas, joined it in full, but Jackson only joined it in part. Ruling: Dismissed as improvidently granted, with one justice dissenting to the dismissal In Lab Corp v. Davis, the justices were considering whether a federal court can certify a class action suit if some of the parties in the suit lack legal standing. A majority of the justices decided to dismiss the case as improvidently granted, meaning that they felt the court should never have agreed to weigh in. Justice Brett Kavanaugh dissented to that decision, writing that he felt it was possible — and would be valuable — to rule on the case. The Supreme Court will release around two dozen more rulings throughout the month of June as it works to wrap up its 2024-25 term by early July. The justices have yet to announce their decision in four of the five cases that the Deseret News highlighted in its list of this term's highest profile battles. The Supreme Court's next decision day has not yet been announced, but it will likely be Thursday, June 12.
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Supreme Court rules that Catholic groups were unlawfully barred from a religious tax exemption
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Thursday ruled in favor of Catholic Church-affiliated charitable groups, saying they were wrongly denied religious exemptions from a Wisconsin tax that funds unemployment benefits. The justices ruled unanimously that the state's decision unlawfully discriminated against the groups on the basis of religion under the free exercise clause of the Constitution's First Amendment. The court rejected a Wisconsin Supreme Court decision that said that the groups operating under the Catholic Charities Bureau of the Diocese of Superior were not sufficiently religious in purpose. The state already provided exemptions for religious institutions. The First Amendment has long been interpreted to exempt religious entities from taxation. Writing for the court, liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor noted the importance of the government remaining neutral when it comes to different religions. "When the government distinguishes among religions based on theological differences in their provision of services, it imposes a denominational preference that must satisfy the highest level of judicial scrutiny," Sotomayor said. But Wisconsin had "transgressed that principle," she added. The groups involved in the case — Headwaters, Barron County Developmental Services, Diversified Services and Black River Industries — primarily serve developmentally disabled people. Their programs are open to non-Catholics. The Wisconsin Labor and Industry Review Commission had concluded the charitable groups were not 'operated primarily for religious purposes' under state law. The Wisconsin Supreme Court in 2024 upheld the state commission's finding, saying the groups' activities were mostly secular in nature and that they do not 'attempt to imbue program participants with the Catholic faith nor supply any religious materials.' The Wisconsin unemployment compensation system was set up in 1932 to provide a safety net for people who lose their jobs. Similar programs in other states and the Federal Unemployment Tax Act also include religious exemptions. The Catholic groups had strong backing at the Supreme Court from other Christian sects and different religious faiths. This article was originally published on
