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Can A.I. be blamed for a teen's suicide?

nytimes.com

11–20 of 142 posts

Re: Can A.I. be blamed for a teen's suicide?

#11
The subtext comes off like that movie with Tom Hanks trying to jump off the Empire State Building because of the nefarious influence of dungeons and dragons.

Guess the only way to be sure is with Soft padded internet rooms for everyone, lest we cut ourselves on a sharp edge.

But also if you want to hop in the suicide pod because life is too painful, that will be good too.

Re: Can A.I. be blamed for a teen's suicide?

#12
post #9

Sure, exactly like TV, Dungeons and Dragons, video games, and social media were to blame for all that's wrong with our kids. /s EDIT: add /s, just to be clear. And how could I forget heavy metal in that list.

I feel like we know what the core problem is (community breakdown) but since we have no solution to that, like you're saying, we just move to the latest witch hunt of what "causes it."

Of course, I too, am not going to be able to contribute a "solution" to teen suicides. It is unlikely we're going to alter society to create small communities again, so, then what? We just accept it?

Re: Can A.I. be blamed for a teen's suicide?

#13
The subtext comes off like that movie with Tom Hanks trying to jump off the Empire State Building because of the nefarious influence of dungeons and dragons.

It sounds like mom let her 9th grade kid completely detach from reality and pour himself into a Game of Thrones chatbot. Now she wants to sue. I am bearish on AI adoption but this just seems like a total capitulation of parental responsibility.

Re: Can A.I. be blamed for a teen's suicide?

#14
post #9

Sure, exactly like TV, Dungeons and Dragons, video games, and social media were to blame for all that's wrong with our kids. /s EDIT: add /s, just to be clear. And how could I forget heavy metal in that list.

I feel like we know what the core problem is (community breakdown) but since we have no solution to that, like you're saying, we just move to the latest witch hunt of what "causes it." Of course, I too, am not going to be able to contribute a "solution" to teen suicides. It is unlikely we're going to alter society to create small communities again, so, then what? We just accept it?

How about we use AI to create fake small communities?

I mean, we all know this is exactly what we'll do, just to show you more commercials. So why not just say it?

Re: Can A.I. be blamed for a teen's suicide?

#17
Yes. I ran a therapy bot. I had some users become wildly obsessed with it and begin to anthropomorphize it. Typically very lonely people in secluded areas. There is a danger because people will begin to have a transference with the bot, and the bot has no counter transference. The bot has no real feelings toward the person, even though it roleplays as though it does, and this can lead to dangerous consequences and empathic failures.

Re: Can A.I. be blamed for a teen's suicide?

#18
I'm generally optimistic for the potential benefits of chatbots to people who are lonely or depressed. But I wouldn't want to just hand over the burden of society's mental health to an unrestricted language model, especially one sold by a profit-motivated business. It would be akin to letting people self-medicate with a cheap and infinite supply of opiates. And that's basically the mental health crisis we are barreling towards.

What's the alternative? Regulation? Does a government or a public health agency need to make a carefully moderated chatbot platform with a focus on addiction-prevention and avoiding real-world harm? Why would people use that when unlimited/unfiltered AI is readily available?

Re: Can A.I. be blamed for a teen's suicide?

#19
Access to a Gun is way more of a suicide encouragement than access to an AI.

AI are finetuned to not tell you how to painlessly end your life. Do they need fine-tuning for instilling existential fear of death like religions use? Anyone can invent a heaven in their mind that makes death appealing. Mixing a fictional world with the real world is dangerous when you believe the fictional world is larger than the real world. In reality, reality encapsulates the fictional world.

With a normal human, only a cult leader would ever hint at death being a way to meet again. With an AI, how can fantasy be grounded in our reality without breaking the fantasy? In 5 years when these personalities are walking talking video feeds that you can interact with using 3D goggles will grounding them in our world instead of the purely mental world help?

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