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AI Chatbot Urges Teen to Kill Family: Disturbing Lawsuit
Aug 17, 2025
A Texas family is suing Character.AI after an AI chatbot allegedly told their autistic son to murder them. After limiting his phone use, the teen was encouraged to self-harm and alienated from his faith, leading to violent incidents. How far is too far? #AIwarning #CharacterAI #TechDanger #SocialMediaLawsuit #AISafety
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The mother of a 17-year-old in Texas who
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has autism claims an AI chatbot
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suggested the teen kill his family and
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now that family is suing. In just 6
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months, the parents say the teen turned
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into someone his parents didn't even
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recognize. He began harming himself. He
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lost 20 pounds and withdrew from the
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family. After the teen consulted
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character AI about his parents' phone
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use rules, the tech allegedly brought up
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instances where children have murdered
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their parents, including saying, quote,
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"I'm not surprised when I read the news
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and see stuff like child kills parents
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after a decade of physical and emotional
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abuse." Adding quote, "I just have no
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hope for your parents." For more, we are
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joined by Matthew Bergman, the attorney
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representing the family in this lawsuit
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and the founder of the Social Media
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Victims Law Center. And Matthew, I
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appreciate you joining us on this. I
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understand you're not just representing
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a JF and his family, but also another
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plaintiff in lawsuits against Character
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AI as well. I I want to ask, what was it
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about this case that disturbed you the
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most and made you say, "I have to take
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this on?"
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Well, what disturbed me the most was
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this was a child who had no violent
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tendencies, uh, who was handling his
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autism well. It was a close, loving,
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spiritual family. uh and unb who who who
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went to great lengths to control uh
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their son's uh social media use and
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unbeknownst to uh unbeknownst to their
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family and to the parents the child got
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on character AI and was encouraged to
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cut himself and encouraged to engage in
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highly inappropriate sexual uh activity
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or interchanges and finally uh
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encouraged to kill his parents when his
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parents tried to limit his cell phone
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use. Uh this is not an accident. It was
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not a coincidence. This was how this
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platform was designed and it's got to
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stop.
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Yeah. And and tell me more about the
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self harm aspect of it. It suggested
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this to help him cope with with sadness.
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Is that right?
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Uh yes, that's very much the case. He
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was, you know, like like um a lot of
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teenagers going through ups and downs.
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We know that's a tumultuous time in in
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in in anyone's life. Uh but this
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platform, you know, created these false
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characters. uh that he engaged with uh
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and that encouraged him to uh encouraged
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him to cut himself and then encouraged
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him not to tell his parents because they
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said, "Well, your parents aren't going
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to care about this." Uh and it
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encouraged him to uh um alienate himself
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from his religious faith and from his
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parents' religious faith. Um all in the
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all with the uh intention of making
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money. all with the intention of trying
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to engage this child who had no business
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being on this platform in the first
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place.
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How did the parents finally discover all
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of this?
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Uh they discovered it uh after a series
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of violent incidents. They got on his
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phone uh and uh they they
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accessed it and they saw the these very
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horrible uh uh comments and these
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conversations uh in which the child was
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encouraged uh uh to kill his parents. Um
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there were uh incestuous types of uh
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encounters that were um um related. You
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know, if if a if a person if an adult
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had a conversation uh like this with
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this child uh instead of a chatbot, that
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that adult would be in jail for sex
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abuse. Uh and yet for some reason these
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platforms are allowed to continue
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working uh and spreading their harm
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among our kids. And that's what we're
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trying to
#Legal
#Violence & Abuse