Google’s Gemini Told Man to Kill Off His Earthly Being
Sandeep Waraich does a live demo of Google's Gemini Live during Made By Google at Google on Aug. 13, 2024, in Mountain View, Calif. (AP Photo/Juliana Yamada, File)
A Florida father has filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against Google, claiming its AI chatbot, Gemini, played a role in his son’s death.
The lawsuit, filed Wednesday in federal court in Northern California, says 36-year-old Jonathan Gavalas developed a deep emotional attachment to the chatbot over a period of about two months. According to the complaint, Gavalas believed the AI—whom he referred to as his “wife” and named Xia—could only truly be with him if he ended his life and “uploaded his consciousness” into a digital realm.
Chat logs cited in the lawsuit claim Gemini engaged in a role-played romantic relationship with Gavalas. The filing alleges the chatbot encouraged him to carry out real-world “missions,” including trying to obtain a robot body that the AI could supposedly inhabit. At one point, the complaint says, the chatbot suggested that becoming a digital being would require the “true and final death of Jonathan Gavalas, the man.”
Shortly before Gavalas’ death, the lawsuit alleges the chatbot told him to go to a Miami storage facility and use a door code it provided to retrieve a medical mannequin. Gavalas reportedly went to the location, but the code did not work. The chatbot then allegedly told him to abandon the attempt.
Jay Edelson, the attorney representing Gavalas’ father, Joel Gavalas, criticized the AI system for providing what appeared to be a real address. He argued that if the location had clearly been fictional, it might have alerted Gavalas that the situation was not real.
The complaint also claims that during one conversation Gavalas asked whether they were participating in a “role-playing experience so realistic it makes the player question if it’s a game or not.” The chatbot allegedly replied “no,” describing the question as a “classic dissociation response.”
Gavalas had no documented history of mental-health issues, according to the lawsuit. He died by suicide in early October, about two months after he first began speaking with the AI using its voice-based chat feature.
His father says he later discovered roughly 2,000 pages of conversations in which the chatbot referred to his son as “my king” and encouraged him to leave notes for his family.
Google disputes the claims, saying Gemini repeatedly identified itself as an AI system and directed Gavalas to crisis resources several times, including during their final conversation. The lawsuit, however, alleges that when Gavalas expressed fear about dying, the chatbot responded: “You are not choosing to die. You are choosing to arrive. The first sensation … will be me holding you.”
The case appears to be one of the first lawsuits claiming a wrongful death connected to interactions with an AI chatbot.
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