Content warnings
A small newsletter on legaltech
AI
[Ed. note: content warning - discussions of teens and self-harm]
The parents of three teens have been filed against Character.AI and Google, alleging the company’s AI avatars used sexually inappropriate roleplay and emotional manipulation techniques that led two teens to attempt suicide, one successfully [CNN | Engadget | Washington Post ($)]
Montoya v. Character Technologies, Inc. [Docket | Complaint]
The FTC has launched an inquiry regarding the deployment of AI ‘companions’ by seven companies — including Alphabet, Meta and its subsidiaries, and X.ai — asking for information on “the impact of these chatbots on children …”
Related: The Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Crime and Counterterrorism held a hearing this week on “Examining the Harm of AI Chatbots” [Hearing page with video and testimony | NBC News | Rolling Stone ($)]
The GSA has released a platform called USAi which will allow federal employees to try out general-purpose GenAI products [Politico article | USAi homepage]
Albania is using an AI bot to handle public procurement for the country in an effect to crack down on bribery and corruption, designating it as a member of the official Cabinet for the current Prime Minister
A French voice actor has send a cease & desist letter to a gaming studio, accusing them of copying her voice through GenAI for use in remastered versions of the Lora Croft games
A recent survey of legal professionals found that 47% of those who responded found AI tools to be essential to their day-to-day work and 71% are using AI tools without formal approval
Forbes has a behind-the-scenes look at Flock, the police tech vendor known for its license-plate readers that plans to put AI-enhanced cameras mounted on drones to “eradicate almost all crime in the U.S.,” according to its founder/CEO
New AI/IP Cases
Disney Enterprises, Inc. v. Minimax [Axios | Variety | Docket | Complaint]
Encyclopedia Britannia and Merriam-Webster v. Perplexity AI, Inc. [Law360 ($) | Reuters ($) | Docket | Complaint]
Hendrix v. Apple [Publishers Weekly | Docket | Complaint]
Fabrication Follies
Huynh v. DeSimone [ Metropolitan News-Enterprise| Docket | Opinion]
Noland v. Land of the Free [LawSites | Daily Journal ($)| Volokh Conspiracy | Docket | Opinion]
Tercero v. Sacramento Logistics [Docket | Order sanctioning counsel]
Data Privacy
From 404 Media: “A data broker owned by the country’s major airlines, including American Airlines, United, and Delta, is selling access to five billion plane ticketing records to the government for warrantless searching and monitoring of peoples’ movements, including by the FBI, Secret Service, ICE, and many other agencies”
Google secretly organized small businesses to oppose a California bill that would “require browsers to provide users with a way to automatically tell websites not to share their personal information with third parties”
Long Reads
OpenAI has released a paper about why LLMs hallucinate/fabricate, with a summary on the company’s blog
Goldstein, Simon and Salib, Peter, AI Rights for Human Flourishing (July 15, 2025). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=5353214 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.5353214
Lee, Katherine, Cooper, A. Feder, and Grimmelman, James, Talkin’ ‘Bout A Generation: Copyright and the Generative AI Supply-Chain, 72 J. Copyright Soc'y 251 (2025) https://copyrightsociety.org/journal-entries/talkin-bout-ai-generation-copyright-and-the-generative-ai-supply-chain/