Clay Calvert says chatbot output is speech
Clay CalvertNonresident senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and professor of law emeritus at the University of Florida, writing on AEI's blog
Clay Calvert argues that chatbot output is speech under the Supreme Court's reasoning on video games, that users' role in shaping it does not change that, and that it would be a mistake for the judge to conclude the case does not involve speech.
Responding to
The First Amendment bars Megan Garcia's claims against Character.AI because they would impose liability for expressive content that the platform's users have a right to receive.
“The fact that users’ inputs influence speech produced by chatbots doesn’t change the fact that chatbot output is speech. ... It would be a mistake for Conway to conclude that Garcia doesn’t involve speech.”
Analysis
Where this statement fits
Character.AI argues the First Amendment bars a lawsuit blaming its chatbot for a teen's suicide
Character.AI argued in federal court that the First Amendment bars a lawsuit blaming its chatbot for a 14-year-old's suicide, because the claims target speech its users have a right to receive. The mother's lawyers argued that the chatbot's output is not protected speech. A judge declined to treat it as speech at an early stage, and the case later settled.
Source and context
Analysis
About this source
Clay Calvert, a nonresident senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, argues that chatbot output is speech under the Supreme Court's reasoning in Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association and criticizes the court's reliance on Justice Barrett's concurrence in Moody v. NetChoice.
Before the quotation
Calvert describes the May 2025 ruling and says the case, despite being framed as a product defect suit, comes down to whether a chatbot's words caused harm.
After the quotation
He argues that the judge's reliance on Justice Barrett's concurrence in Moody v. NetChoice was misplaced because the case turns on users' right to receive speech, not on editorial decisions.
How this statement is classified
The label describes this statement's response within the context above.
Why this label?
The reference point is Character.AI's argument that the First Amendment bars tort claims seeking to hold it liable for its chatbots' output. Defended or excused: Calvert argues that the First Amendment applies to the chatbot output at issue and warns against a ruling that it is not speech. The closest competing label is Challenged characterization; it loses because he goes beyond disputing the court's description of the output and argues for the protection on which Character.AI's defense rests.
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More from this case
Read the full caseEFF says chatbot output can be protected expression but harms can be addressed
Electronic Frontier Foundation
“Far from being the speech of a robot, chatbot output often reflects human expression that is entitled to First Amendment protection. ... None of this is to suggest that chatbots cannot be regulated or that the harms they cause cannot be addressed. The First Amendment simply requires that those regulations be appropriately tailored to the harm to avoid unduly burdening the right to express oneself through the medium of a chatbot, or to receive the information it provides.”Read statement
FIRE says chatbot output is speech and urges an immediate appeal
Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression
“Contrary to the court’s uncertainty about whether “words strung together by an LLM” are speech, assembling words to convey messages and information is the essence of speech. ... If it is not speech, plaintiffs will be able to impose liability for the distribution of ideas in a way that courts have steadfastly rejected for other forms of media.”Read statement
Tech Justice Law Project welcomes the court's First Amendment ruling
Tech Justice Law Project
“This decision is truly historic. It sends a clear signal to companies developing and deploying LLM-powered products at scale that they cannot evade legal consequences for the real-world harm their products cause, regardless of the technology’s novelty. Crucially, the defendants failed to convince the Court that those harms were a result of constitutionally-protected speech, which will make it harder for companies to argue so in the future, even when their products involve machine-mediated “conversations” with users.”Read statement
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The Dispute Index. "Clay Calvert says chatbot output is speech". First published: 2026-10-14. Last updated: 2026-10-14. https://disputeindex.com/events/5724-clay-calvert-argues-that-chatbot-output-is-speech