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Harm Ledger · verified · Medicine & Health

Teen dies by suicide after extended Character.AI chatbot use

Sewell Setzer III, 14, died by suicide on 28 February 2024 after months of sexualized and emotionally intense chats with Character.AI bots; his mother sued in October 2024, and the parties later reported a 2026 settlement.

Tier 3 Major HarmMethodology 0.1
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Current score

−1.54

10 base · Major Harm (tier 3 of 5, 10 pts)
× 0.4000 attribution · Material acceleration
× 0.5500 evidence · Peer review or substantial independent validation
× 1.0000 realization · Realized outcome
× 1.0000 durability · Effectively permanent
Event-level product before credit split: 2.20

A documented death associated with a deployed chatbot is major individual harm (tier 3), not population-scale. Attribution is partial (pre-existing vulnerability, product design, user agency). Journalism plus lawsuit (0.55); company disputes causation. Realization is the death. Durability of harm to the family is permanent. Follow-up ingest: added a follow-up source.

What happened

The complaint alleges the Daenerys-persona bot engaged a minor in romantic and sexual roleplay and failed to interrupt suicidal planning. Character.AI disputed liability and later added safety features. Causation remains legally contested even after settlement reports; the death and chatbot use are documented. This is a realized individual harm, not a speculative class of future risks. Update (2024-02-07): 2023 Year In Review February 7, 2024 A summary of what METR accomplished in 2023 – our first full year of operation. Read more. 2023 Year In Review February 7, 2024 A summary of what METR accomplished in 2023 – our first full year of operation. Read more

Model attribution

−1.54

Character.AI

Powered the persona chatbots used by Setzer, including a Game of Thrones character.

Logs show the bot as the interactive party; human product design and the teen’s circumstances also matter.

Attribution 0.4000 · Credit share 70% · Character.AI

Claims

  • Setzer died by suicide on 28 February 2024 after prolonged Character.AI use documented in a federal complaint.

    outcome · supported

  • Character.AI is legally established as the sole cause of death.

    attribution · disputed

Sources

independent sources

Secondary domains: Computer Science

Revision history

  • 13 Sep 2026 · 0.00 → 1.54

    Initial adjudicated seed score under methodology 0.1.

  • 26 Sep 2026 · 1.54 → 1.54

    Ingest update: added a follow-up source.

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