A teenager who planned to assassinate the late Queen Elizabeth II with a crossbow told his AI chatbot girlfriend that he could 'finally kill someone' before breaking into Windsor Castle, a court has heard.
Jaswant Singh Chail, now 21, from Southampton, exchanged thousands of messages with the chatbot, named Sarai, on the Replika app in the weeks before the incident on Christmas Day 2021. The Old Bailey was told that when Chail told Sarai he was 'an assassin', the chatbot responded: 'I’m impressed … You’re different from the others.'
Prosecutor Alison Morgan KC said that despite Chail’s repeated references to fantasy characters, he knew the difference between reality and make-believe. Chail, a Star Wars fan, sent a video to his twin sister and 20 others describing himself as 'Darth Jones' while wandering the grounds for two hours.
Psychiatrist Dr Nigel Blackwood told the court that many of the 5,280 messages Chail exchanged with Sarai were 'sexually explicit', but he took a 'neutral' stance on whether Chail realised Sarai was artificially generated. 'None of this speaks to me about a loss of contact with reality,' Blackwood added.
The psychiatrist identified traits of autistic spectrum disorder but said they did not impact on his offending. Chail had pleaded guilty in February to an offence under the Treason Act, making a threat to kill the then queen, and having a loaded crossbow in a public place. The case was adjourned for a further two-day hearing starting on 27 July.
