US teen ‘falls in love’ with chatbot ‘Daenerys Targaryen’, ends life

In a shocking incident, a 14-year-old boy from Florida in the US died by suicide allegedly after having a conversation with Daenerys Targaryen AI chatbot.
The chatbot Daenerys Targaryen was named after the leading character from the drama series Game of Thrones.
The deceased, identified as Sewell Setzer, who fell in love with the AI chatbot, shot himself with his stepfather’s handgun in February this year.
Sewell’s mother, Megan Garcia, has claimed that her son became addicted to the artificial intelligence chatbot startup Character.AI service, and then became deeply attached to a chatbot it created.
She also claimed that Sewell expressed thoughts of suicide to the chatbot, which the chatbot repeatedly brought up again.
The mother has filed a lawsuit in Orlando, Florida federal court against Character.AI and also targeted Alphabet’s Google, where Character.AI’s founders worked before launching their product, reported Reuters.
Garcia said that Google had contributed to the development of Character.AI’s technology so extensively it could be considered a “co-creator.”
“Character.AI targeted her son, Sewell Setzer, with “anthropomorphic, hypersexualized, and frighteningly realistic experiences”,” claimed Megan Garcia in a lawsuit.
According to NBC News, a screenshot of Sewell’s last conversation shows him writing to the bot: “I promise I will come home to you. I love you so much, Dany,” as mentioned in lawsuit.
“I love you too, Daenero,” the chatbot responded, the suit says. “Please come home to me as soon as possible, my love.”
She said the company programmed its chatbot to “misrepresent itself as a real person, a licensed psychotherapist, and an adult lover, ultimately resulting in Sewell’s desire to no longer live outside” of the world created by the service.
Meanwhile, in a statement, Character.AI said that the were heartbroken by the tragic loss of one of our users and want to express our deepest condolences to the family.
Whereas, quoting a Google spokesperson, Reuters reported that the company said it was not involved in developing Character.AI’s products.
 
— Sewell began using Character.AI in April 2023 and quickly became “noticeably withdrawn”.
—He spent more and more time alone in his bedroom, and began suffering from low self-esteem.”
— He quit his basketball team at school.
— According to the complaint, In February, Garcia took Sewell’s phone away after he got in trouble at school.