{"id":212,"date":"2025-05-22T02:17:20","date_gmt":"2025-05-21T22:17:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.actutech.app\/are-character-ais-chatbots-protected-speech-one-court-isnt-sure\/"},"modified":"2025-05-22T02:17:20","modified_gmt":"2025-05-21T22:17:20","slug":"are-character-ais-chatbots-protected-speech-one-court-isnt-sure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.actutech.app\/en\/are-character-ais-chatbots-protected-speech-one-court-isnt-sure\/","title":{"rendered":"Are Character AI\u2019s chatbots protected speech? One court isn\u2019t sure"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A lawsuit against Google and companion chatbot service Character AI \u2014 which is accused of contributing to the death of a teenager<\/a> \u2014 can move forward, ruled a Florida judge<\/a>. In a decision filed today, Judge Anne Conway said that an attempted First Amendment defense wasn\u2019t enough to get the lawsuit thrown out. Conway determined that, despite some similarities to videogames and other expressive mediums, she is \u201cnot prepared to hold that Character AI\u2019s output is speech.\u201d<\/p>\n

The ruling is a relatively early indicator of the kinds of treatment that AI language models could receive in court. It stems from a suit filed by the family of Sewell Setzer III, a 14-year-old who died by suicide after allegedly becoming obsessed with a chatbot that encouraged his suicidal ideation. Character AI and Google (which is closely tied to the chatbot company) argued that the service is akin to talking with a video game non-player character or joining a social network, something that would grant it the expansive legal protections that the First Amendment offers and likely dramatically lower a liability lawsuit\u2019s chances of success. Conway, however, was skeptical.<\/p>\n

While the companies \u201crest their conclusion primarily on analogy\u201d with those examples, they \u201cdo not meaningfully advance their analogies,\u201d the judge said. The court\u2019s decision \u201cdoes not turn on whether<\/em> Character AI is similar to other mediums that have received First Amendment protections; rather, the decision turns on how<\/em> Character AI is similar to the other mediums\u201d \u2014 in other words whether Character AI is similar to things like video games because it, too, communicates ideas that would count as speech. Those similarities will be debated as the case proceeds.<\/p>\n

While Google doesn\u2019t own Character AI, it will remain a defendant in the suit thanks to its links with the company and product; the company\u2019s founders Noam Shazeer and Daniel De Freitas, who are separately included in the suit, worked on the platform as Google employees before leaving to launch it and were later rehired there. Character AI is also facing a separate lawsuit<\/a> alleging it harmed another young user\u2019s mental health, and a handful of state lawmakers have pushed regulation for \u201ccompanion chatbots\u201d that simulate relationships with users \u2014 including one bill, the LEAD Act<\/a>, that would prohibit them for children\u2019s use in California. If passed, the rules are likely to be fought in court at least partially based on companion chatbots\u2019 First Amendment status.<\/p>\n

This case\u2019s outcome will depend largely on whether Character AI is legally a \u201cproduct\u201d that is harmfully defective. The ruling notes that \u201ccourts generally do not categorize ideas, images, information, words, expressions, or concepts as products,\u201d including many conventional video games \u2014 it cites, for instance, a ruling that found Mortal Kombat\u2019s<\/em> producers couldn\u2019t be held liable<\/a> for \u201caddicting\u201d players and inspiring them to kill. (The Character AI suit also accuses the platform of addictive design.) Systems like Character AI, however, aren\u2019t authored as directly as most videogame character dialogue; instead, they produce automated text that\u2019s determined heavily by reacting to and mirroring user inputs.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThese are genuinely tough issues and new ones that courts are going to have to deal with.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n

Conway also noted that the plaintiffs took Character AI to task for failing to confirm users\u2019 ages and not letting users meaningfully \u201cexclude indecent content,\u201d among other allegedly defective features that go beyond direct interactions with the chatbots themselves.<\/p>\n

Beyond discussing the platform\u2019s First Amendment protections, the judge allowed Setzer\u2019s family to proceed with claims of deceptive trade practices, including that the company \u201cmisled users to believe Character AI Characters were real persons, some of which were licensed mental health professionals\u201d and that Setzer was \u201caggrieved by [Character AI\u2019s] anthropomorphic design decisions.\u201d (Character AI bots will often describe themselves as real people in text, despite a warning to the contrary in its interface, and therapy bots are common on the platform.)\u00a0<\/p>\n

She also allowed a claim that Character AI negligently violated a rule meant to prevent adults from communicating sexually with minors online, saying the complaint \u201chighlights several interactions of a sexual nature between Sewell and Character AI Characters.\u201d Character AI has said it\u2019s implemented additional safeguards since Setzer\u2019s death, including a more heavily guardrailed model<\/a> for teens.<\/p>\n

Becca Branum, deputy director of the Center for Democracy and Technology\u2019s Free Expression Project, called the judge\u2019s First Amendment analysis \u201cpretty thin\u201d \u2014 though, since it\u2019s a very preliminary decision, there\u2019s lots of room for future debate. \u201cIf we\u2019re thinking about the whole realm of things that could be output by AI, those types of chatbot outputs are themselves quite expressive, [and] also reflect the editorial discretion and protected expression of the model designer,\u201d Branum told The Verge<\/em>. But \u201cin everyone\u2019s defense, this stuff is really novel,\u201d she added. \u201cThese are genuinely tough issues and new ones that courts are going to have to deal with.\u201d<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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