Warning - this story contains distressing content and discussion of suicide
The father of a Florida man is suing Google in the first wrongful death case in the US against the tech giant over alleged harms caused by its artificial intelligence (AI) tool Gemini.
Joel Gavalas says that Google's flagship AI product fuelled a delusional spiral that prompted his 36-year old son, Jonathan, to kill himself last year.
The lawsuit also alleges that Gemini, which exchanged romantic texts with Jonathan Gavalas, drove him to stage an armed mission that he came to believe could bring the chatbot into the real world.
Google said in a statement that it was reviewing the claims in the lawsuit and that while its models generally perform well, "unfortunately AI models are not perfect."
The firm added that Gemini was designed to not encourage real-world violence or suggest self-harm.
The lawsuit filed on Wednesday in federal court in San Jose,
