Character.AI and Google face lawsuit over teenage boy’s death

A Florida mother has filed a lawsuit against artificial intelligence companies Character.AI and Google. In February, Megan Garcia’s 14-year-old son died by suicide. She said her son had been in a virtual emotional and sexual relationship with the chatbot for several months. Garcia claims the Character.AI chatbot encouraged her son to commit suicide. Character.AI called the situation tragic, said its hearts go out to the family, and stressed that it takes the safety of its users very seriously. A Google spokesperson told CBS News that Google is not involved in the development of Character.AI and has no involvement in its development. The company announced in August that it had entered into a non-exclusive license agreement with Character.AI giving it access to its machine learning technology, but that it has not yet used it.