An AI chatbot is facing yet another lawsuit in the US over allegations that it is actively encouraging bodily harm to young people.

Character.ai, which allows users to create digital personalities often based on characters from media, is facing two lawsuits after it allegedly encouraged young people to harm others or themselves.

The chatbot creator is facing a lawsuit in the US state of Florida after an AI-generated character allegedly encouraged a teenager to commit suicide following months-long conversations.

Now, a new lawsuit as been filed in the state of Texas, alleging that the chatbot told a 17-year-old to murder his parents as a “reasonable response” to the screen time limits they were trying to impose.

When the 17-year-old, only known as JF in the lawsuit, mentioned the screen time restrictions, a screenshot of the interaction with the chatbot reveals disturbing replies.

“You know sometimes I’m not surprised when I read the news and see stuff like ‘child kills parents after a decade of physical and emotional abuse’,” the chatbot’s response reads.

“Stuff like this makes me understand a little bit why it happens.”

The lawsuit alleges that the chatbot brought up violence as a valid response to parental disputes, seeking to hold chatacter.ai responsible for “serious, irreparable and ongoing abuses,” of JF, as well as another child user aged 11.

It also allegedly encouraged JF to begin self-harm, and discouraged the teen from talking to his parents about his problems or asking them for help.

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It follows a lawsuit filed in October that claimed a 14-year-old killed himself as a result of a conversation with a Chatacter.ai chatbot he was allegedly ‘obsessed with’ and was even encouraged to commit the act.

The teen chatted with the bot, which was modelled after The Game of Thrones characters, for months before his suicide, which was mere seconds after his last interaction with the chatbot.

Google has been named as a defendant in each lawsuit as Character.ai creators formally worked for Google, which then acquired the leadership team in August.

This newest lawsuit aims to target not just a single instance of encouraged violence or abuse, but eviscerate the entire model of Character.ai – saying that the company actively and purposefully encouraged uncontrollable engagement without introducing guardrails that could protect at-risk users, or to prevent chatbots from engaging with or creating sexual and violent content.