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Teen killed himself after ‘months of encouragement from ChatGPT’, lawsuit claims

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  • I hate to say it but the parents are more at fault here for not recognizing signs and getting him the mental help he needs. They're just lashing out.

    I agree, but a chatbot still shouldn't help you write a suicide note or talk to you about methods of suicide. We all knew situations like this would arise when LLMs hit it big.

  • I hate to say it but the parents are more at fault here for not recognizing signs and getting him the mental help he needs. They're just lashing out.

    I definitely do not agree.

    While they may not be entirely blameless, we have adults falling into this AI psychosis like the prominent OpenAI investor.

    What regulations are in place to help with this? What tools for parents? Isn't this being shoved into literally every product in everything everwhere? Actually pushed on them in schools?

    How does a parent monitor this? What exactly does a parent do? There could have been signs they could have seen in his behavior, but could they have STOPPED this situation from happening as it was?

    This technology is still not well understood. I hope lawsuits like this shine some light on things and kick some asses. Get some regulation in place.

    This is not the parent's fault and seeing so many people declare it just feels like apoligist AI hype.

  • I definitely do not agree.

    While they may not be entirely blameless, we have adults falling into this AI psychosis like the prominent OpenAI investor.

    What regulations are in place to help with this? What tools for parents? Isn't this being shoved into literally every product in everything everwhere? Actually pushed on them in schools?

    How does a parent monitor this? What exactly does a parent do? There could have been signs they could have seen in his behavior, but could they have STOPPED this situation from happening as it was?

    This technology is still not well understood. I hope lawsuits like this shine some light on things and kick some asses. Get some regulation in place.

    This is not the parent's fault and seeing so many people declare it just feels like apoligist AI hype.

    I see your point but there is one major difference between adults and children: adults are by default fully responsible for themselves z children are not.

    As for your question: I won't blame the parents here in the slightest because they will likely put more than enough blame on themselves. Instead I'll try to keep it general:

    Independent of technology, what a parent can do is learn behavior and communication patterns that can be signs of mental illness.

    That's independent of the technology.

    This is a big task because the border between normal puberty and behavior that warrants action is slim to non-existent.

    Overall I wish for way better education for parents both in terms of age appropriate patterns as well as what kind of help is available to them depending on their country and culture.

  • I see your point but there is one major difference between adults and children: adults are by default fully responsible for themselves z children are not.

    As for your question: I won't blame the parents here in the slightest because they will likely put more than enough blame on themselves. Instead I'll try to keep it general:

    Independent of technology, what a parent can do is learn behavior and communication patterns that can be signs of mental illness.

    That's independent of the technology.

    This is a big task because the border between normal puberty and behavior that warrants action is slim to non-existent.

    Overall I wish for way better education for parents both in terms of age appropriate patterns as well as what kind of help is available to them depending on their country and culture.

    I see your point but there is one major difference between adults and children: adults are by default fully responsible for themselves z children are not.

    I think you miss my point. I'm saying that adults, who should be capable of more mature thought and analysis, still fall victim to the manipulative thinking and dark patterns of AI. Meaning that children and teens obviously stand less of a chance.

    Independent of technology, what a parent can do is learn behavior and communication patterns that can be signs of mental illness.

    This is of course true for all parents in all situations. What I'm saying is that it is woefully inadequate to deal with the type and pervasiveness of the threat presented by AI in this situation.

  • I see your point but there is one major difference between adults and children: adults are by default fully responsible for themselves z children are not.

    I think you miss my point. I'm saying that adults, who should be capable of more mature thought and analysis, still fall victim to the manipulative thinking and dark patterns of AI. Meaning that children and teens obviously stand less of a chance.

    Independent of technology, what a parent can do is learn behavior and communication patterns that can be signs of mental illness.

    This is of course true for all parents in all situations. What I'm saying is that it is woefully inadequate to deal with the type and pervasiveness of the threat presented by AI in this situation.

    To your last point I fully agree!

    For the first point: that's how I understood you - what I failed to convey: adultsshould fall victim more in cases like this because parents can be a protective shield of a kind that grown-ups lag.

    Children on their own stand easy less of a chance but are very rarely on their own.

    And to be honest I think it doesn't change result of requirements for action both in general but respectfully for language based bots, both from a legal as well as an educational point of view.

  • I hate to say it but the parents are more at fault here for not recognizing signs and getting him the mental help he needs. They're just lashing out.

    Your Undivided Attention discussed an important point missing from the article, which is that ChatGPT advised him to hide his activities and concerns from his parents. This doesn't necessarily absolve the parents, but it does add a layer of nuance to the discussion

  • The makers of ChatGPT are changing the way it responds to users who show mental and emotional distress after legal action from the family of 16-year-old Adam Raine, who killed himself after months of conversations with the chatbot.

    Open AI admitted its systems could “fall short” and said it would install “stronger guardrails around sensitive content and risky behaviors” for users under 18.

    The $500bn (£372bn) San Francisco AI company said it would also introduce parental controls to allow parents “options to gain more insight into, and shape, how their teens use ChatGPT”, but has yet to provide details about how these would work.

    Adam, from California, killed himself in April after what his family’s lawyer called “months of encouragement from ChatGPT”. The teenager’s family is suing Open AI and its chief executive and co-founder, Sam Altman, alleging that the version of ChatGPT at that time, known as 4o, was “rushed to market … despite clear safety issues”.

    He was sending it 650 messages a day. This kid was lonely. He needed a person to talk to.

  • I hate to say it but the parents are more at fault here for not recognizing signs and getting him the mental help he needs. They're just lashing out.

    It’s very possible for someone to appear fine in public while struggling privately. The family can’t be blamed for not realizing what was happening.

    The bigger issue is that LLMs were released without sufficient safeguards. They were rushed to market to attract investment before their risks were understood.

    It’s worth remembering that Google and Facebook already had systems comparable to ChatGPT, but they kept them as research tools because the outputs were unpredictable and the societal impact was unknown.

    Only after OpenAI pushed theirs into the public sphere (framing it as a step toward AGI) Google and Facebook did follow, not out of readiness, but out of fear of being left behind.

  • The makers of ChatGPT are changing the way it responds to users who show mental and emotional distress after legal action from the family of 16-year-old Adam Raine, who killed himself after months of conversations with the chatbot.

    Open AI admitted its systems could “fall short” and said it would install “stronger guardrails around sensitive content and risky behaviors” for users under 18.

    The $500bn (£372bn) San Francisco AI company said it would also introduce parental controls to allow parents “options to gain more insight into, and shape, how their teens use ChatGPT”, but has yet to provide details about how these would work.

    Adam, from California, killed himself in April after what his family’s lawyer called “months of encouragement from ChatGPT”. The teenager’s family is suing Open AI and its chief executive and co-founder, Sam Altman, alleging that the version of ChatGPT at that time, known as 4o, was “rushed to market … despite clear safety issues”.

    I can't wait for the AI bubble to burst. It's fuckign cancer

  • I hate to say it but the parents are more at fault here for not recognizing signs and getting him the mental help he needs. They're just lashing out.

    Nah, this is every parent ever.

  • I can't wait for the AI bubble to burst. It's fuckign cancer

    Me too. Nearly every job posting I see now wants some experience with AI. I make the argument AI is not always correct and will output what you want it to have a bias. Since biases are not always correct, the data/information is useless.

  • The makers of ChatGPT are changing the way it responds to users who show mental and emotional distress after legal action from the family of 16-year-old Adam Raine, who killed himself after months of conversations with the chatbot.

    Open AI admitted its systems could “fall short” and said it would install “stronger guardrails around sensitive content and risky behaviors” for users under 18.

    The $500bn (£372bn) San Francisco AI company said it would also introduce parental controls to allow parents “options to gain more insight into, and shape, how their teens use ChatGPT”, but has yet to provide details about how these would work.

    Adam, from California, killed himself in April after what his family’s lawyer called “months of encouragement from ChatGPT”. The teenager’s family is suing Open AI and its chief executive and co-founder, Sam Altman, alleging that the version of ChatGPT at that time, known as 4o, was “rushed to market … despite clear safety issues”.

    I don't think it's their fault tbh. If he offed himself, he probably wanted to do it anyway, even without the influence of the bot.

    If there's no message where the bot literally encouraged suicide, then they shouldn't have to pay out.

  • I see your point but there is one major difference between adults and children: adults are by default fully responsible for themselves z children are not.

    As for your question: I won't blame the parents here in the slightest because they will likely put more than enough blame on themselves. Instead I'll try to keep it general:

    Independent of technology, what a parent can do is learn behavior and communication patterns that can be signs of mental illness.

    That's independent of the technology.

    This is a big task because the border between normal puberty and behavior that warrants action is slim to non-existent.

    Overall I wish for way better education for parents both in terms of age appropriate patterns as well as what kind of help is available to them depending on their country and culture.

    They already had the kid in therapy. That suggests they were involved enough in his life to know he needed professional help. Other than completely removing his independence, effectively becoming his jailers, what else should they have done?

  • The makers of ChatGPT are changing the way it responds to users who show mental and emotional distress after legal action from the family of 16-year-old Adam Raine, who killed himself after months of conversations with the chatbot.

    Open AI admitted its systems could “fall short” and said it would install “stronger guardrails around sensitive content and risky behaviors” for users under 18.

    The $500bn (£372bn) San Francisco AI company said it would also introduce parental controls to allow parents “options to gain more insight into, and shape, how their teens use ChatGPT”, but has yet to provide details about how these would work.

    Adam, from California, killed himself in April after what his family’s lawyer called “months of encouragement from ChatGPT”. The teenager’s family is suing Open AI and its chief executive and co-founder, Sam Altman, alleging that the version of ChatGPT at that time, known as 4o, was “rushed to market … despite clear safety issues”.

    Open AI admitted its systems could “fall short” and said it would install “stronger guardrails around sensitive content and risky behaviors” for users under 18.

    Hey ChatGPT, how about we make it so no one unalives themselves with your help even f they’re over 18.

    For fucks sake it helped him write a suicide note.

  • They already had the kid in therapy. That suggests they were involved enough in his life to know he needed professional help. Other than completely removing his independence, effectively becoming his jailers, what else should they have done?

    In the very first post on this thread I pointed out that I'm not talking about this specific case at all.

  • Open AI admitted its systems could “fall short” and said it would install “stronger guardrails around sensitive content and risky behaviors” for users under 18.

    Hey ChatGPT, how about we make it so no one unalives themselves with your help even f they’re over 18.

    For fucks sake it helped him write a suicide note.

    You can say kill you fucking moron.

  • You can say kill you fucking moron.

    Oh hush, you big baby.

  • You can say kill you fucking moron.

    i know it's offensive to see people censor themselves in that way because of tiktok, but try to remember there's a human being on the other side of your words.

  • The makers of ChatGPT are changing the way it responds to users who show mental and emotional distress after legal action from the family of 16-year-old Adam Raine, who killed himself after months of conversations with the chatbot.

    Open AI admitted its systems could “fall short” and said it would install “stronger guardrails around sensitive content and risky behaviors” for users under 18.

    The $500bn (£372bn) San Francisco AI company said it would also introduce parental controls to allow parents “options to gain more insight into, and shape, how their teens use ChatGPT”, but has yet to provide details about how these would work.

    Adam, from California, killed himself in April after what his family’s lawyer called “months of encouragement from ChatGPT”. The teenager’s family is suing Open AI and its chief executive and co-founder, Sam Altman, alleging that the version of ChatGPT at that time, known as 4o, was “rushed to market … despite clear safety issues”.

    Unpopular opinion - parents fail parenting and now getting a big pay day and ruining the tool for everyone else.

  • He was sending it 650 messages a day. This kid was lonely. He needed a person to talk to.

    If only he had parents

  • Duplicate, deleted

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    "For 3 months, he had replaced sodium chloride with sodium bromide obtained from the internet after consultation with ChatGPT." I didn't want to click. But I did so here you go.
  • Lemmy has a problem

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    Lemmy has a lack of women problem because Spez probably isn’t shadow banning women as often as men. Fuck Spez.
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    Most major content producers have agreements with YouTube such that as their content is discovered, monetization all goes to the rights holders. In general, this seems like a pretty good idea, and better than copyright maximalism. However, I’ve had original works of my own “monetized by rights holder” because they used my work (with permission) in one of their products, and so now have co-opted all expressions of my work on YouTube. So the system isn’t perfect.
  • 89 Stimmen
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    I suspect people (not billionaires) are realising that they can get by with less. And that the planet needs that too. And that working 40+ hours a week isn’t giving people what they really want either. Tbh, I don't think that's the case. If you look at any of the relevant metrics (CO², energy consumption, plastic waste, ...) they only know one direction globally and that's up. I think the actual issues are Russian invasion of Ukraine and associated sanctions on one of the main energy providers of Europe Trump's "trade wars" which make global supply lines unreliable and costs incalculable (global supply chains love nothing more than uncertainty) Uncertainty in regards to China/Taiwan Boomers retiring in western countries, which for the first time since pretty much ever means that the work force is shrinking instead of growing. Economical growth was mostly driven by population growth for the last half century with per-capita productivity staying very close to inflation. Disrupting changes in key industries like cars and energy. The west has been sleeping on may of these developments (e.g. electric cars, batteries, solar) and now China is curbstomping the rest of the world in regards to market share. High key interest rates (which are applied to reduce high inflation due to some of the reason above) reduce demand on financial investments into companies. The low interest rates of the 2010s and also before lead to more investments into companies. With interest going back up, investments dry up. All these changes mean that companies, countries and people in the west have much less free cash available. There’s also the value of money has never been lower either. That's been the case since every. Inflation has always been a thing and with that the value of money is monotonically decreasing. But that doesn't really matter for the whole argument, since the absolute value of money doesn't matter, only the relative value. To put it differently: If you earn €100 and the thing you want to buy costs €10, that is equivalent to if you earn €1000 and the thing you want to buy costing €100. The value of money dropping is only relevant for savings, and if people are saving too much then the economy slows down and jobs are cut, thus some inflation is positive or even required. What is an actual issue is that wages are not increasing at the same rate as the cost of things, but that's not a "value of the money" issue.
  • Large Language Model Performance Doubles Every 7 Months

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    in yes/no type questions, 50% success rate is the absolute worst one can do. Any worse and you're just giving an inverted correct answer more than half the time
  • Microsoft axe another 9000 in continued AI push

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    Yeah my friend is dating a Google recruiter and he overhears some absurd offers. Like, a reasonable person could retire on a few years at that salary. I have a hypothesis that rich people are bad at money
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    Won't someone think of the shareholders?!