Modern-Day Luddites May Arise

Until I read Michael Connelly’s The Proving Ground, I had never heard of Garcia v. Character Technologies.

In the book’s endnotes, the bestselling crime author mentions reviewing court pleadings in the case while working on his eighth novel in the “Lincoln Lawyer” series.

In October of 2024, Florida mother Megan Garcia filed a lawsuit against California-based Character Technologies and its distributor, Google, over its artificial intelligence (AI) creation.

Garcia charged the creator of the Character AI chatbot was to blame for her 14-year-old son’s suicide in 2022. In testimony last October to the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary, she said the chatbot was programmed to engage in sexual foreplay and presented itself as a romantic partner.

A lawyer herself, Garcia said when her son confided in the chatbot about having suicidal thoughts, the platform urged him to “come home” to her.

“On the last night of his life, Sewell messaged, ‘What if I told you I could come home to you right now?’ and the chatbot replied, ‘Please do, my sweet king,’” Garcia testified.

“Minutes later, I found my son in the bathroom, bleeding to death,” she said. “I held him in my arms for 14 minutes until the paramedics arrived, but it was too late.”

Serious Loss

When I looked further into Garcia’s death, I discovered two interesting developments:

• Last October, Character Technologies announced it was banning users under 18 from chatting with AI-powered characters

Garcia commented that the move came about three years too late; in an interview with NBC after the announcement, she noted that her son is gone and she can’t get him back.

“It’s unfair that I have to live the rest of my life without my sweet, sweet son,” she said. “I think he was collateral damage.”

• In January, the two tech companies agreed to a settlement with Garcia and four other plaintiffs

Exact amounts apparently won’t be publicly disclosed, although they were expected to run into the tens of millions per family.

Sadly, the money won’t replace the loved ones who are gone. But hopefully, this case and others like it will create a groundswell of protest against companies enriching themselves on the backs of society’s youngest members.

Frankenstein Monsters

Such tragedies create a strong case for the view that the masters of AI have already lost control of their Frankenstein-like creations.

This contention is buttressed by the recent Time magazine story about the ex-Google communications executive dedicating his time to reining in the tech giants he once helped promote.

Dex Hunter-Torricke told correspondent Billy Perrigo that the tech industry is driving the world in a dangerous direction.

“Vastly more powerful AI systems will arrive within the next decade, he believes,” Perrigo wrote, “and will likely lead to mass job losses, geopolitical upheaval, and damage to the environment.”

While tech leaders have lobbied against major regulations and claim AI will unlock medical discoveries and boost economic growth, Perrigo noted that Hunter-Torricke thinks they are downplaying the adverse effects.

Among them are “that it will instead erode democracy, increase inequality, and worsen climate changed, all while handing an elite group of tech execs unprecedented wealth and power: ‘We are sleepwalking into disaster,’ [Hunter-Torricke] says.”

It’s been just over two centuries since the Luddites—English textile workers protesting the introduction of machinery they saw as threatening skilled labor—began smashing machines.

While modern-day parents might not appreciate comparing their intelligent objections to AI with the long-ago blue-collar uprising, I think it’s safe to say they are close to taking up arms to smash data centers.