Character.AI is being targeted in a lawsuit after the suicide of a 14-year-old Florida boy whose mother says he became obsessed with a chatbot on the platform.
Sewell Setzer III, a ninth grader from Orlando, spent months talking to chatbots on Character.AI’s AI role-playing app. Setzer developed an emotional attachment to one bot in particular, “Dany,” which he texted constantly — to the point where he began to pull away from the real world.
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Setzer confessed having thoughts of suicide to the bot and messaged it shortly before his death.
This morning, Character.AI said it would roll out a number of new safety features, including “improved detection, response, and intervention” related to chats that violate its terms of service and a notification when a user has spent an hour in a chat.
