In February 2025, fourteen-year-old Sewell Setzer killed himself.
He was in love with a Chatbot, a creation of Artificial Intelligence.
Now, his mother is suing the AI company, Character.AI, and app where users can chat with chatbots who takes on the personas of characters, such as a teacher, neighbor, or celebrity. In her wrongful death lawsuit, which may very well wind its way to the Supreme Court, she claims that the company subjected and seduced her son to unhealthy, addictive and life-threatening behaviors.
Can a Chatbot be held liable for a human death? Character.AI argues that its Chatbot produces something that is protected by the First Amendment – free speech.
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As I read about this tragic and riveting reality, I’m reminded of the instructions in this week’s parsha Noach. After Noah and his family survived the Flood, Hashem gives humanity a set of laws to follow. The Seven Universal Laws, known as the Seven Laws of Noah, apply to all of humanity (as opposed to the Giving of the Torah – 10 Commandments and 613 Mitzvot – which were given exclusively to the Jewish people). Included is the prohibition against murder, which appears in the Torah as follows:
But your blood, of your souls, I will demand an account; from the hand of every beast I will demand it, and from the hand of man, from the hand of each man, his brother, I will demand the soul of man. Whoever sheds the blood of man through man shall his blood be shed, for in the image of G-d He made man. And you, be fruitful and multiply; swarm upon the earth and multiply thereon.
Most of the civilized world agrees that a basic moral code is required for humanity. But, does this code need to be Divine-driven? Aren’t we smart enough to figure out the basics ourselves? Don’t many secular governments have laws on the books that mirror, in some form, the Seven Laws of Noah?
But, as my mentor and teacher, the Lubavitcher Rebbe, explained, any code of morality that is based on human intellect will inevitably be corrupted by human intellect. It’s not because humans are incapable of understanding. It’s because the human mind can – and will – find ways to justify and explain any behavior.
Just look at Berlin of the 1930s. It was a leading center of culture and science – and the center of the greatest murder machine in human history.
As we grapple with new moral dilemmas, let’s remember that the belief that there is a Master to this world, Who created it and knows what is best for us, is the only guarantee that civilized society will endure.
Grasping this immense reality, however, is not enough.
Immediately after forbidding murder, the Torah proceeds to command us to procreate. “Do no harm,” is not enough in the Torah’s books. We need to proactively make this world a better and holier place.
Let’s generate life – both in the physical sense and spiritually – by creating good deeds that will live on forever.