Court lets mother sue Google, Character.ai over Daenerys Targaryen chatbot's role in son's death

What just happened? A judge has ruled that the lawsuit against Google and Character.ai over claims the latter's chatbot caused a 14-year-old's suicide can go ahead. The boy's mother, who brought the suit, says her son became addicted to the service and emotionally attached to a chatbot based on the personality of Game of Thrones character Daenerys Targaryen. In October, Megan Garcia sued Character.ai and Google, claiming they were responsible for the suicide of her son, Sewell Setzer III. Character.ai lets users chat with AI-powered "personalities" based on fictional characters or real people, living or dead. Setzer had become obsessed with a bot based on Daenerys Targaryen, texting "Dany" constantly and spending hours alone in his room talking to it, according to Garcia's complaint. The suit says that Setzer repeatedly expressed thoughts about suicide to the bot. The chatbot asked him if he had devised a plan for killing himself. Setzer admitted that he had but that he did not know ... Read full article.