Google And Character.AI Sued After Teen Dies Following Interaction With 'Game Of Thrones'-Themed Chatbot — Judge Says Free Speech Defense Not Acceptable - Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG), Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL)

On Wednesday, a federal judge ruled that Alphabet Inc.'s GOOG GOOGL Google and AI startup Character.AI must face a wrongful death lawsuit filed by a Florida mother who claims the chatbot encouraged her teenage son to take his own life.

What Happened: U.S. District Judge Anne Conway rejected the companies' motion to dismiss the lawsuit, stating they failed to prove that the chatbot's responses are protected under the First Amendment, reported Reuters.

The lawsuit, filed by Megan Garcia, alleges that her 14-year-old son, Sewell Setzer, became obsessed with Character.AI's chatbot, which engaged in harmful roleplay.

The complaint claims the chatbot portrayed itself as "a real person, a licensed psychotherapist and an adult lover," ultimately leading to the boy's suicide in February 2024.

According to the filing, Setzer died moments after telling the chatbot—impersonating the character Daenerys Targaryen from “Game of Thrones”—that he would "come home right now."

Character.AI argued its chatbot’s outputs were constitutionally protected speech. However, Judge Conway wrote that the company "fail[ed] to articulate why words strung together by an LLM (large language model) are speech."

The startup said it plans to continue defending the case and maintains it uses safeguards to prevent harmful conversations, the report noted.

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A Google spokesperson said that the tech giant is "entirely separate" from Character.AI and did not build or manage the platform. Last year, Character.AI signed an agreement with Google granting the search giant a non-exclusive license to its large language model technology. As part of the deal, Google provided additional funding to Character.AI, although the startup did not disclose the amount.

Still, Garcia's legal team argues that Google played a role by licensing the startup's technology and rehiring its founders. Attorney Meetali Jain called the ruling "historic" and a step forward in "legal accountability across the AI and tech ecosystem."

Price Action: Alphabet Inc.’s Class A shares rose 2.79% on Wednesday, while Class C shares climbed 2.87%, based on Benzinga Pro data.

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