The plaintiff's position: J.F. is 17 and lives in Upshur County, Texas. Prior to April 2023, J.F. was a typical kid with high functioning autism. Friends and f

The plaintiff's position: J.F. is 17 and lives in Upshur County, Texas. Prior to April 2023, J.F. was a typical kid with high functioning autism. Friends and family described him as kind and sweet. He gave hugs, helped around the house, and adored his little brother. Just prior to the onset of COVID, J.F. began struggling at school. The school was not complying with his Individualized Education Program (“IEP”) and his mother found herself having to advocate for J.F. often; so they decided to try homeschooling. J.F. thrived and loved home schooling until around the summer of 2023, shortly after he began using C.AI. J.F.’s parents did not allow social media in their home and to the best of their knowledge he did not use Snapchat, TikTok, or similar products. They also imposed screen time limits and utilized commercially available parental control tools – including ones distributed by Apple – that purport to keep kids safe by letting parents restrict the apps their children can download based on Apple’s app ratings. In the fall of 2023, J.F. told his parents that he wanted to go back to public school. However, by then, J.F. was acting so uncharacteristically erratically and aggressively that his parents did not believe it would be safe for others – teachers, staff, and students – to be around him. That won't play well in court. The defense can frame this as a possibly mentally defective child, kept from school by his parents for five years, kept isolated from social media, and with no connection to the outside world other than the chatbot. Of course the kid became violent. His parents had cut him off from all other contacts. They were not letting him have a life.