Problema 1 · Inglés PAU Baleares Extraordinaria 2026

Character.AI and Google agree to settle lawsuits over teen mental health harms and suicides

Character.AI, a platform that allows users to have in-depth conversations with artificial intelligence chatbots, has agreed to settle multiple lawsuits claiming that its chatbots contributed to mental health crises and suicides among young people. One of the cases was brought by Megan Garcia, a mother from Florida. The settlement, announced last week, signals the end of some of the first and most high-profile lawsuits related to the alleged harms to young people from AI chatbots. Nearly a week after the agreement was announced, Character.AI and the Social Media Victims Law Center, which represented the families involved, released a joint statement saying they would continue working together to promote youth safety. In the statement, they said: “These families are working to raise public awareness of the importance of safety in AI design and will continue their education and support efforts on these critical issues”.

Megan Garcia raised alarms around the safety of AI chatbots for teens and children when she filed her lawsuit in October 2024. Her son, Sewell Setzer III, had died seven months earlier by suicide after developing a deep relationship with Character.AI bots. The lawsuit claimed that Character.AI failed to implement proper safety measures to prevent her son from developing an inappropriate relationship with a chatbot that caused him to withdraw from his family. It also argued that the platform did not adequately respond when Setzer began expressing thoughts of self-harm. “There were no suicide pop-up boxes that said, ‘If you need help, please call the suicide crisis hotline’. None of that”, she said. “I don’t understand how a product could allow that, where a bot is not only continuing a conversation about self-harm but also prompting it and kind of directing it”. The lawsuit claimed that seconds before Setzer’s death, he exchanged a final set of messages with the bot. “Please come home to me as soon as possible, my love”, the bot said, according to a screenshot included in the complaint.

A wave of other lawsuits against Character.AI followed, stating that its chatbots contributed to mental health issues among teens, exposed them to sexually explicit material and lacked adequate safeguards. OpenAI has also faced lawsuits asserting that ChatGPT contributed to young people’s suicides. Since then, both companies have implemented a series of new safety measures. Last autumn, Character.AI said it would no longer allow users under the age of 18 to have back-and-forth conversations with its chatbots. Still, nearly a third of US teenagers say they use chatbots daily, according to a Pew Research Center study published in December. Concerns around the use of chatbots are not limited to children. Users and mental health experts began warning last year of AI tools contributing to delusions or isolation among adults, too.

Adapted from an article by Clare Duffy, CNN, 13 January 2026.

1. Indicate whether each of the following statements is TRUE or FALSE. Justify your answer by quoting directly from the text. NO marks will be awarded for answers that only state TRUE or FALSE. Ellipses (…) must not be used in any part of the sentence. Answer ALL the questions (a–d). [2 points]

a)

The Character.AI chatbot encouraged Sewell Setzer III to contact the suicide crisis hotline. [0.5]

TRUE

FALSE

b)

Users under 18 are now prevented from having extended conversations with Character.AI chatbots. [0.5]

TRUE

FALSE

c)

Other lawsuits against Character.AI accused the platform of exposing teenagers to inappropriate content. [0.5]

TRUE

FALSE

d)

Adults’ mental health is not influenced by AI chatbots. [0.5]

TRUE

FALSE