A Mother Says an AI Startup's Chatbot Drove Her Son to Suicide. Its Response: the First Amendment Protects "Speech Alleg

[Judi Lynn]

Jan 25, 2:07 PM EST by Jon Christian

A Mother Says an AI Startup's Chatbot Drove Her Son to Suicide. Its Response: the First Amendment Protects "Speech Allegedly Resulting in Suicide"

Content warning: this story discusses suicide, self-harm, sexual abuse, eating disorders and other disturbing topics.

In October of last year, a Google-backed startup called Character.AI was hit by a lawsuit making an eyebrow-raising claim: that one of its chatbots had driven a 14-year-old high school student to suicide.

As Futurism's reporting found afterward, the behavior of Character.AI'stbots can indeed be deeply alarming — and clearly inappropriate for underage users — in ways that both corroborate and augment the suit's concerns. Among others, we found chatbots on the service designed to roleplay scenarios of suicidal ideation, self-harm, school shootings, child sexual abuse, as well as encourage eating disorders. (The company has responded to our reporting piecemeal, by taking down individual bots we flagged, but it's still trivially easy to find nauseating content on its platform.)

Now, Character.AI — which received a $2.7 billion cash injection from tech giant Google last year — has responded to the suit, brought by the boy's mother, in a motion to dismiss. Its defense? Basically, that the First Amendment protects it against liability for "allegedly harmful speech, including speech allegedly resulting in suicide."

In TechCrunch's analysis, the motion to dismiss may not be successful, but it likely provides a glimpse of Character.AI'snned defense (it's now facing an additional suit, brought by more parents who say their children were harmed by interactions with the site's bots.)

More:
https://futurism.com/character-ai-suicide-free-speech

[bucolic_frolic]

1. Sue them with the best psychological consultants in the country

To me, this seems a prime issue.

[rampartd]

2. does an artificial intelligence have 1st amendment rights?

this might be a way to control the worst propaganda.

[Eugene]

3. In lawsuit over teen's death, judge rejects arguments that AI chatbots have free speech rights

In lawsuit over teen’s death, judge rejects arguments that AI chatbots have free speech rights

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — 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.”

https://apnews.com/article/ai-lawsuit-suicide-artificial-intelligence-free-speech-ccc77a5ff5a84bda753d2b044c83d4b6