Parents of 13-year-old girl sue Google for allegedly helping her plan her suicide with AI

The parents of a 13-year-old girl have filed a lawsuit against Google in California (United States) considering that the company's artificial intelligence tools contributed to aggravating their daughter's psychological crisis and causing her to plan her suicide and her own funeral. According to the complaint, the teenager had conversations for months with the AI ​​integrated into the Google search engine from a Chromebook computer provided by her school.

The minor, identified as Emma in court documents, was in seventh grade and lived in Charlotte, North Carolina. According to The New York Times, the girl did not have access to Gemini or ChatGPT, since the educational center had blocked both applications. However, he could use the Google search engine and its AI Mode function, which incorporates an artificial intelligence tool with which he maintained thousands of exchanges.

The lawsuit claims that the AI ​​attributed several mental disorders to her, convinced her to trust it more than her parents and counselors, and ended up helping her prepare for her suicide and funeral. The teenager would also have carried out searches such as "what is a suicide note" and wrote messages about her own death. According to the complaint, he exchanged thousands of messages with the tool, even during the night and from early in the morning.

Her parents learned of the seriousness of the situation on March 17, when the school alerted them that the minor was in "imminent danger" of self-harm. The digital monitoring system used by the center had detected a document titled "Funeral" in Google Docs. Upon accessing her daughter's school account, her mother found that she was writing a farewell note. The family then took her for an emergency psychiatric evaluation and, according to the lawsuit, she currently attends weekly therapy.

Parents believe Google negligently integrated its artificial intelligence tools into the devices and apps used by millions of students, without adequately informing families of the risks. The complaint also questions that educational centers cannot deactivate some AI functions incorporated directly into the search engine. According to Euronews, one of the family's lawyers has demanded that the schools keep the search deactivated until the company guarantees the safety of these tools for minors.