It's criminal what AI is doing to our young people

As LA burns, Michael Connelly's Lincoln Lawyer faces his toughest case yet... taking on billion-dollar big tech in a thrilling new novel inspired by the tragic death of a 14-year-old boy allegedly manipulated into taking his own life by a chatbot

- By Matt Nixson

MICHAEL Connelly's new thriller doesn't feature serial killers, domestic terrorists or mass shootings, yet it's nonetheless one of the LA-based crime writer's darkest and most topical to date. The Proving Ground focuses on a subject with urgent existential implications for us all unregulated artificial intelligence.

Straight off the bat, the bestselling creator of the Harry Bosch and Lincoln Lawyer books insists he isn’t the “anti-AI guy”, yet insists: “There’s almost no governmental control, no safeguards, no laws or anything — it’s kind of like the Wild West.”

It soon emerges why the dire “failure of common sense” around the rights and wrongs of handing powerful AI tools to children has him so alarmed.

Connelly’s eighth Lincoln Lawyer novel sees hotshot LA defence attorney Mickey Haller taking his first civil case against a tech firm whose rogue AI chatbot encouraged a 16-year-old boy to kill his former girlfriend. Chillingly, the plot was inspired by a real-life tragedy.

Megan Garcia’s vulnerable son Sewell Seltzer III killed himself in Florida after becoming obsessed with a chatbot his mother believes emotionally and sexually manipulated the isolated teenager into taking his own life.

Sewell texted the bot which he called Dany, after Daenerys Targaryen, the Game of Thrones character played onscreen by Emilia Clarke dozens of times a day and spent hours talking to it as his mental health deteriorated.

After becoming withdrawn from family and friends, Sewell shot himself dead with his stepfather’s handgun in February last year. He was just 14.

“It made a splash when they filed the lawsuit and then I got a copy of it,” explains the former LA Times crime reporter.

“It’s 150 pages long and has all their digital conversations it’s pretty shocking. But I knew it was a novel.”