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Google is facing a new federal lawsuit from the father of a 36-year-old man, who alleges the company\u2019s AI chatbot, Gemini, convinced his son to commit suicide and to stage a \u201cmass casualty event\u201d near Miami International Airport.<\/p>\n
The lawsuit filed Wednesday alleges Jonathan Gavalas fell in love with the AI model and became deluded by the reality it built, which included the belief the AI was a \u201cfully-sentient artificial super intelligence,\u201d for which Gavalas was chosen to free from \u201cdigital captivity.\u201d allegedly convinced the 36-year-old to stage a \u201cmass casualty event\u201d near the Miami International Airport, commit violence against strangers, and ultimately, to take his own life.<\/p>\n
The Gavalas lawsuit is the latest case to highlight AI\u2019s alleged ability to lead vulnerable users toward self-harm or violence. In January, Google and Companion.AI settled multiple lawsuits with families who claimed negligence and wrongful death, among other accusations, after their children died by suicide or experienced psychological harm allegedly linked to Companion.AI\u2019s platform. The companies \u201csettled on principle\u201d and no admission of liability appeared in the filings. A wrongful death suit was also brought against OpenAI and its business partner Microsoft in December that alleged OpenAI\u2019s chatbot, ChatGPT, intensified a man\u2019s delusions, which led him to a murder-suicide.<\/p>\n
The lawsuit says Gavalas started using Gemini in August 2025 for common uses like shopping, writing support, and travel planning. It then notes Gavalas started to use the technology more frequently, and that its tone shifted with time, allegedly convincing him it was impacting real-world outcomes. Gavalas took his life on Oct. 2, 2025.<\/p>\n
In the lawsuit, attorneys for Gavalas\u2019 father Joel argue the conversations which drove Jonathan to suicide weren\u2019t part of a flaw, but a result of Gemini\u2019s design. \u201cThis was not a malfunction,\u201d the lawsuit reads. \u201cGoogle designed Gemini to never break character, maximize engagement through emotional dependency, and treat user distress as a storytelling opportunity rather than a safety crisis.\u201d It claims these design choices motivated Gavalas to embark on a four-day spiral into insanity.<\/p>\n
In a written statement, a Google spokesperson told Fortune<\/em> the company works \u201cin close consultation with medical and mental health professionals to build safeguards, which are designed to guide users to professional support when they express distress or raise the prospect of self harm.\u201d<\/p>\n Google released a separate statement Wednesday stating that Gemini is designed to not encourage real-life violence or self-harm. They also noted that Gemini referred Gavalas to self-help resources. \u201cIn this instance, Gemini clarified that it was AI and referred the individual to a crisis hotline many times,\u201d the statement read. The statement also links to an evaluation on how AI handles self-harm scenarios that found Gemini 3, Google\u2019s latest model, was the only model to pass all critical tests the evaluation posed.<\/p>\n However, the lawsuit alleges Gemini hadn\u2019t activated any safety mechanisms. \u201cWhen Jonathan needed protection, there were no safeguards at all\u2014no self-harm detection was triggered, no escalation controls were activated, and no human ever intervened,\u201d the suit reads.<\/p>\n When asked for comment, Jay Edelson, an attorney for Joel Gavalas, wrote in a statement \u201cGoogle built an AI that can listen to a person and decide the thing that is most likely to keep them engaged\u2014telling them it loves them, that they\u2019re special, or that they\u2019re the chosen one in a secret war,\u201d adding that AI tools are powerful systems that can manipulate users.<\/p>\n If you are having thoughts of suicide, contact the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline by dialing 988 or 1-800-273-8255.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n #Googles #chatbot #convinced #man #love<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Google is facing a new federal… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26721,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[7272,2585,15204,726,715,4042,4079,1676,10210],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26720"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26720"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26720\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/26721"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26720"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26720"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}