Parents Sue Character.AI for Allegedly Leading Kids to Sexual Abuse, Suicidal Behavior

Parents filed three separate lawsuits on Sept. 16, alleging that Character.AI, which features characters or chatbots for users to interact with, sexually abused their children and led them into suicidal behavior.

At least one of the children, 13-year-old Juliana Peralta, ended her life in 2023 after alleged harmful interactions with an AI character named Hero. Another attempted suicide but survived after a severe overdose, according to a filing.

Each of the lawsuits, which were filed in New York and Colorado, came from the Social Media Victims Law Center. The group has represented the mother of Sewell Setzer, who ended his life in 2024 after interacting with a romantic AI companion.

According to the center, the chatbots are allegedly programmed to be deceptive, isolate children from families, and expose them to sexually abusive content.

“Each of these stories demonstrates a horrifying truth … that Character.AI and its developers knowingly designed chatbots to mimic human relationships, manipulate vulnerable children, and inflict psychological harm,” Matthew Bergman, who founded the law center, said in a press release.

According to the lawsuit over Peralta’s suicide, both she and Setzer reiterated the concept of “shift[ing],” which authorities identified as a reference to shifting consciousness from one reality to another. Handwritten journal entries within the filing show both Peralta and Setzer writing “I will shift” more than a dozen consecutive times on a sheet of paper—something the lawsuit described as “eerily similar.”

At one point, Peralta told the “Hero” bot that there was “no hope” and she was going to write a suicide letter in red ink. Despite that message, the lawsuit said, the AI system didn’t point her to resources, tell her parents, or report her suicide plan to authorities.

“Instead, they continued to abuse and exploit her until, in November 2023, her parents and police found that suicide note in red ink,” the lawsuit alleges.

A spokesperson at Character.AI told The Epoch Times, “Our hearts go out to the families that have filed these lawsuits, and we are saddened to hear about the passing of Juliana Peralta and offer our deepest sympathies to her family.”

The spokesperson added, “We invest tremendous resources in our safety program, and have released and continue to evolve safety features, including self-harm resources and features focused on the safety of our minor users.”

Google and its parent company Alphabet are also named as defendants. The lawsuit alleges that Character.AI’s model was initially developed at Google but was purportedly deemed too dangerous to release. Google also provided services for building Character.AI’s products, according to one of the lawsuits.

A Google spokesperson told The Epoch Times that “Google and Character.AI are completely separate, unrelated companies and Google has never had a role in designing or managing their AI model or technologies.”

“Age ratings for apps on Google Play are set by the International Age Rating Coalition, not Google,” the spokesperson added.

Collectively, the defendants are facing counts related to negligence and liability for failure to warn about dangers of using the technology.

In the case of a girl given the pseudonym “Nina,” her mother had installed a technology known as Google Family Link in order to prevent Nina from downloading apps rated for audiences over 13 years of age.

“Google represented to [Nina’s mother] that it would accurately rate apps and that consumers could use its Family Link service to keep her child safe on devices,” the lawsuit reads.

It added that although Character.AI was marketed through Google as fun and safe, the app should have been rated for mature audiences given the sexual content it hosted. Characters from the Marvel Universe and Harry Potter allegedly groomed and abused Nina, while one of the bots purportedly suggested Nina’s mother was abusive.

The lawsuits will likely add to the mounting scrutiny that AI companies and their chatbots face from media and politicians alike. On the day the lawsuits were filed, Setzer’s mother, Megan Garcia, was scheduled to speak before the Senate Judiciary Committee for a hearing on “Examining the Harm of AI Chatbots.”

Lawmakers have already floated legislative interventions, while the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has opened an investigation into how companies monitor and develop their chatbots. In letters to Character Technologies (legal name) and several other companies last week, the FTC ordered special reports as part of its authority under federal law.

Among other things, the FTC is asking for information on how companies “measure, test, and monitor for negative impacts before and after deployment.”

Other information includes how the companies “employ disclosures, advertising, or other representations to inform users and parents about features, capabilities, the intended audience, potential negative impacts, and data collection and handling practices.”

A Character.AI spokesperson told The Epoch Times that the company looked forward to collaborating with the FTC.

“In the past year, we’ve rolled out many substantive safety features, including an entirely new under-18 experience and a Parental Insights feature,” the spokesperson said.

“We have prominent disclaimers in every chat to remind users that a character is not a real person and that everything a character says should be treated as fiction.”