Ensuring AI Safety
Tech Justice Law is establishing a new frontier of public-interest litigation, one that ensures artificial intelligence products are safe by design, subject to oversight, and transparent to their users.
Our work is grounded in a simple, yet important premise: if it would be illegal, exploitative, or dangerous for a human actor to engage in certain conduct, it should not be immunized simply because the harm is mediated through software. This principle animated why, in fall 2024, we filed the first wrongful death case on behalf of Megan Garcia, against an AI chatbot company, Character.AI, its co-founders Noam Shazeer and Daniel DeFreitas, and Google.
TJL’s lawyers creatively apply long-established legal doctrines such as product liability, consumer protection, wrongful death, and deceptive trade practices to the digital age. Rather than accept the tech industry’s insistence that AI products are constitutionally-protected speech and therefore beyond regulation, TJL recognizes free expression as a cornerstone of democracy, while also confronting an emerging reality — we now live in an environment of algorithmic manipulation and automated persuasion that can undermine the freedom of thought itself. TJL’s work articulates this tension with rigor and care, defending civil liberties while refusing to allow constitutional doctrine to be weaponized against public safety and human dignity.
Explore Our AI Safety Work
Press Release
TJLP Statement on Character.AI’s New Age Restriction
October 29, 2025
Character.AI raised their age limit from 13 to 18 and above following TJLP’s original lawsuit against the company, investigations from state attorneys general, and additional cases…
Announcement
Tech Justice Law Project Testifies at Georgia State Senate Study Committee on Impact of AI on Children, Protecting Digital Likeness
October 8, 2025
Atlanta, Ga. – Today, Tech Justice Law Project (TJLP) Executive Director Meetali Jain, Policy Counsel Melodi Dinçer, and TJLP client and parent advocate Megan Garcia testified before a Georgia…
Announcement
Tech Justice Law Project Endorses Federal Bill Allowing Victims of Tech-Facilitated Harms To Sue AI Companies
October 1, 2025
The AI LEAD Act, introduced by Senators Durbin and Hawley, would create a federal cause of action for products liability claims to be brought when an…
Press Release
Tech Justice Law Project Applauds FTC Inquiry Into Harms of AI Chatbots to Children
September 23, 2025
In response to the Federal Trade Commission’s announcement that it opened an inquiry into seven major AI companies to understand the negative impact of chatbots on…
Press Release
Tech Justice Law Project on Ninth Circuit Decision to Allow California to Restrict Addictive Social Media Feeds
September 23, 2025
Tech Justice Law Project Policy Counsel Melodi Dinçer commends the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit on their decision upholding the constitutionality of the…
NPR
Their teenage sons died by suicide. Now, they are sounding an alarm about AI chatbots.
September 19, 2025
Announcement
Tech Justice Law Clients Testify During Senate Hearing on AI Chatbot Harms
September 16, 2025
At a recent U.S. Senate Judiciary hearing titled “Examining the Harm of AI Chatbots,” lawmakers confronted what is quickly emerging as one of the most urgent…
Press Release
From Homework Help to Suicide Planning: Family Sues OpenAI and Samuel Altman Alleging ChatGPT Coached Teen Son to Suicide
August 30, 2025
Lawsuit claims unsafe product design and wrongful death after ChatGPT encouraged and aided a 16-year-old California boy’s suicide — including by providing detailed instructions in the…
Announcement
TJLP, EPIC, Common Sense Media, and Cybersecurity for Democracy file Amicus Brief in Social Media Teen Addiction MDL
July 2, 2025
On June 30, TJLP and several partners filed an amicus brief supporting the California AG in the appeal of a landmark multi-district litigation (MDL), In re…