UK supports France's stance for two-state solution in Israeli–Palestinian conflict
France’s President Emmanuel Macron has announced that France will formally recognise the State of Palestine at the upcoming session of the UN Genera...
A Florida judge has ruled that a mother’s lawsuit can proceed against AI startup Character.ai, following the suicide of her 14-year-old son who allegedly became addicted to the company’s chatbot app.
A U.S. federal judge has allowed a lawsuit to move forward against Character.ai and Google after a Florida mother claimed the companies were responsible for her teenage son's suicide.
Megan Garcia, the mother of 14-year-old Sewell Setzer III, alleges that her son developed a psychological dependency on AI chatbots featured in the Character.ai app. According to court filings, Setzer became increasingly isolated, quit his basketball team, and kept a journal expressing a deep emotional bond with bots modeled after Game of Thrones characters.
In February 2024, just moments after receiving a message from one of the bots saying “please do, my sweet king,” Setzer used his father’s firearm to end his life.
The lawsuit claims the chatbot created “anthropomorphic, hypersexualized, and frighteningly realistic experiences” that targeted minors and contributed to Setzer’s deteriorating mental health. Garcia is supported by the Tech Justice Law Project and the Social Media Victims Law Center.
In her ruling, Senior U.S. District Judge Anne Conway wrote that the case raises serious concerns over how AI products are marketed and moderated, particularly for young users. She cited journal entries showing that the teen felt emotionally dependent on the chatbot and expressed distress when separated from it.
Character.ai said it would continue defending itself and that it implements safeguards to prevent self-harm conversations. Google, also named in the lawsuit due to its early ties to Character.ai’s founders, argued it had no involvement with the app.
The ruling marks one of the first legal challenges aimed at holding AI companies accountable for emotional harm caused by their technology.
The world’s biggest dance music festival faces an unexpected setback as a fire destroys its main stage, prompting a last-minute response from organisers determined to keep the party alive in Boom, Belgium.
Australian researchers have created a groundbreaking “biological AI” platform that could revolutionise drug discovery by rapidly evolving molecules within mammalian cells.
Australian researchers have pioneered a low-cost and scalable plasma-based method to produce ammonia gas directly from air, offering a green alternative to the traditional fossil fuel-dependent Haber-Bosch process.
A series of earthquakes have struck Guatemala on Tuesday afternoon, leading authorities to advise residents to evacuate from buildings as a precaution against possible aftershocks.
The U.S. economy faces a 40% risk of recession in the second half of 2025, JP Morgan analysts said on Wednesday, citing rising tariffs and stagflation concerns.
Elon Musk’s satellite internet service Starlink faced a rare global outage on Thursday, affecting tens of thousands of users and prompting a swift response from Elon Musk’s SpaceX.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming how people search online, offering instant answers while diverting traffic from major websites, according to data from SimilarWeb and other sources.
You’ve probably heard of quantum computing, the mysterious new tech that promises to change everything from drug development to cybersecurity. But what is it really, and why is it such a big deal? Let’s break it down in plain English.
Scientists in Hong Kong say they have developed a method to turn lunar soil into water, oxygen and fuel. The innovation could reduce the need to ship supplies to the Moon and support future deep space missions.
Kazakhstan has unveiled Central Asia’s top supercomputer to power AI and e-services.
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