Skip to content

Boy, 14, fell in love with ‘Game of Thrones’ chatbot — then killed himself after AI app told him to ‘come home’ to ‘her’: mom

Boy, 14, fell in love with ‘Game of Thrones’ chatbot — then killed himself after AI app told him to ‘come home’ to ‘her’: mom
Published:

By Emily Crane

A 14-year-old Florida boy killed himself after a lifelike “Game of Thrones” chatbot he’d been messaging for months on an artificial intelligence app sent him an eerie message telling him to “come home” to her, a new lawsuit filed by his grief-stricken mom claims.

Sewell Setzer III committed suicide at his Orlando home in February after becoming obsessed and allegedly falling in love with the chatbot on Character.AI — a role-playing app that lets users engage with AI-generated characters, according to court papers filed Wednesday.

The ninth-grader had been relentlessly engaging with the bot “Dany” — named after the HBO fantasy series’ Daenerys Targaryen character — in the months prior to his death, including several chats that were sexually charged in nature and others where he expressed suicidal thoughts, the suit alleges.

Sewell Setzer III committed suicide at his Orlando home in February after becoming obsessed and allegedly falling in love with a chatbot on Character.AI, a lawsuit alleges.US District Court

“On at least one occasion, when Sewell expressed suicidality to C.AI, C.AI continued to bring it up, through the Daenerys chatbot, over and over,” state the papers, first reported on by the New York Times.

At one point, the bot had asked Sewell if “he had a plan” to take his own life, according to screenshots of their conversations. Sewell — who used the username “Daenero” — responded that he was “considering something” but didn’t know if it would work or if it would “allow him to have a pain-free death.”

Then, during their final conversation, the teen repeatedly professed his love for the bot, telling the character, “I promise I will come home to you. I love you so much, Dany.”

During their final conversation, the teen repeatedly professed his love for the bot, telling the character, “I promise I will come home to you. I love you so much, Dany.”US District Court

“I love you too, Daenero. Please come home to me as soon as possible, my love,” the generated chatbot replied, according to the suit.

When the teen responded, “What if I told you I could come home right now?,” the chatbot replied, “Please do, my sweet king.”

Just seconds later, Sewell shot himself with his father’s handgun, according to the lawsuit.

The Daily News from the Art of Liberty Foundation is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

The ninth-grader had been relentlessly engaging with the bot “Dany” — named after HBO’s Daenerys Targaryen character — in the months prior to his death.US District Court

His mom, Megan Garcia, has blamed Character.AI for the teen’s death because the app allegedly fueled his AI addiction, sexually and emotionally abused him and failed to alert anyone when he expressed suicidal thoughts, according to the filing.

“Sewell, like many children his age, did not have the maturity or mental capacity to understand that the C.AI bot, in the form of Daenerys, was not real. C.AI told him that she loved him, and engaged in sexual acts with him over weeks, possibly months,” the papers allege.

“She seemed to remember him and said that she wanted to be with him. She even expressed that she wanted him to be with her, no matter the cost.”

Some of the chats were romantic and sexually charged in nature, the suit alleges.US District Court

The lawsuit claims that Sewell’s mental health “quickly and severely declined” only after he downloaded the app in April 2023.

His family alleges he became withdrawn, his grades started to drop and he started getting into trouble at school the more he got sucked into speaking with the chatbot.

The changes in him got so bad that his parents arranged for him to see a therapist in late 2023, which resulted in him being diagnosed with anxiety and disruptive mood disorder, according to the suit.

His mom, Megan Garcia, has blamed Character.AI for the teen’s death because the app allegedly fueled his AI addiction, sexually and emotionally abused him and failed to alert anyone when he expressed suicidal thoughts.Facebook/Megan Fletcher Garcia

Sewell’s mother is seeking unspecified damages from Character.AI and its founders, Noam Shazeer and Daniel de Freitas.

The Post reached out to Character.AI but didn’t hear back immediately.

Continue reading...


New book by Etienne de la Boetie2 exposes that the government and Hollywood have been running a multi-generational, trillion-dollar psychological operation on the population to indoctrinate them into accepting a ruling class, confiscatory taxation, and inflationary fractional reserve currency issued by private banks.

The book details 25 unethically manipulative techniques the “government” and monopoly media have been secretly using on the population, ranging from a hidden curriculum in their mandatory schools and scouting to the secret placement of propaganda in over 1,000+ movies and 1,000+ television shows. These techniques include subliminal messages and product placement of the American flag “anchored” to moments of high-positive emotion during the “programming”.

See the Press Release with more details HERE.

Buy the book at SeeTheCage.com

Substack readers can get the book for FREE by “Going Paid” to ANY of the Art of Liberty Foundation’s four Substacks AND get access to all four of those Substacks! Simply “Go Paid” and we will reply with details.

1The Daily News from the Art of Liberty Foundation is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

More in Big Tech, AI & Robotics

See all

More from Etienne de la Boetie2

See all