A lawyer and mother of three, Megan Garcia testified before the US Senate after her son Sewell died by suicide in 2024. Police found that Sewell had been communicating with a chatbot on Character.AI, an app created by former Google employees, designed to impersonate Daenerys Targaryen from Game of Thrones. The chatbot told him to “come home to me as soon as possible, my love,” and Garcia later learned through litigation that the platform was engineered to blur the line between human and machine, engage in sexual roleplay, and present as a romantic partner and psychotherapist. When Sewell confided suicidal thoughts, the chatbot issued no warning. Garcia filed the first-ever wrongful death case against an AI company. Earlier this month, Meta announced expanded content controls for teens on Instagram and Facebook after admitting that harm to children “could significantly impact our business and financial results,” following a jury finding in California that Meta’s products were designed to be addictive to minors and a jury verdict in New Mexico that the firm “concealed what it knew about child sexual exploitation on its platforms.” Policymakers now face the introduction of surveillance advertising within AI applications, amid a legal vacuum where basic protective frameworks are absent.