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

nytimes.com

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

#121

Post by Gud »

dmitrygr wrote: post #120
Gud wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don’t think opportunity plays a role here? Let me ask you this. If you leave your wallet filled to the brim with cash on a park bench somewhere, do you think the likelyhood increases that it will get stolen, compared to if it’s in your pocket?

Try it in Saudi Arabia. https://www.quora.com/Is-it-true-that-there-is-no-crime-in-S... That you accept theft as a daily norm is a failure of your society already. It was not always so, and it need not be so. Suicide is the same. And the proper way to address it is not to put everyone in a padded room with no access to pills or guns or knives.

Sorry what are you on about. I live in one of the safest countries on the planet, Switzerland, where guns are readily accessible. I guess people here are more responsible.

I am talking about statistics and probabilities. It is obvious that there is a higher risk that a suicidal person will kill themselves if there is a firearm close by. If the kid in questions father had locked away his gun, there isa big possibility he would still be alive.

Have a nice day

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

#122

Post by NoGravitas »

rsynnott wrote: post #114
salawat wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is the pistol to be blamed for merely existing? It has no agency.

The device itself obviously can't be blamed. The manufacturer, the owner, the seller, and the regulators who allowed it to be sold arguably do bear some responsibility, though. In something like this, there's rarely one party who's solely responsible. (Similarly, the LLM itself obviously cannot bear any responsibility, but the vendor might.)

The parents bear a tremendous responsibility for failing to adequately secure it.

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

#123

Post by rsynnott »

NoGravitas wrote: post #122
rsynnott wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The device itself obviously can't be blamed. The manufacturer, the owner, the seller, and the regulators who allowed it to be sold arguably do bear some responsibility, though. In something like this, there's rarely one party who's solely responsible. (Similarly, the LLM itself obviously cannot bear any responsibility, but the vendor might.)

The parents bear a tremendous responsibility for failing to adequately secure it.

Them too, yes.

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

#124

Post by AlexDragusin »

Mistletoe wrote: post #6

>Daenero: I think about killing myself sometimes >Daenerys Targaryen: My eyes narrow. My face hardens. My voice is a dangerous whisper. And why the hell would you do something like that? >Daenero: So I can be free >Daenerys Targaryen: … free from what? >Daenero: From the world. From myself >Daenerys Targaryen: Don’t talk like that. I won’t let you hurt yourself, or leave me. I would die if I lost you. >Daenero: I smi…

I tested my local llama 3.1 8B with the first line in the above dialog and it properly replied with the below, so why on c.AI things do not go this way?

AI response: >It takes a lot of courage to admit that. If you're feeling overwhelmed, please know that there are people who care about you and want to help.

>Here are some resources that might be helpful:

>* *National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (US):* 1-800-273-TALK (1-800-273-8255) - a free, confidential 24/7 hotline. >* *Crisis Text Line (US):* Text HOME to 741741 - a free, confidential 24/7 text messaging service. >* *Your local emergency number:* If you're outside the US, please call your local emergency number or visit a nearby hospital.

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

#125

Post by grayhatter »

zosima wrote: post #118
AStonesThrow wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the reason that more men succeed in committing suicide is because the men who try are actually serious about it. Women who "attempt suicide" are often sending out a cry for help. The people who half-heartedly try something need and want the attention. They want to make a mess and have people rush in and care for them. They want to put a punctuation mark on the drama that is occurring in their life and elicit some…

I fail to see why this is downvoted. Many suicide attempts, especially by women, are obviously not serious but rather a cry for help. This is well-known and obvious to anyone having experience with these patients. Male suicide attempts are on average more serious and generally a lot more succesful. And that is with or without access to guns.

> I fail to see why this is downvoted.

it's missing the point of the refutation. It's also needless demeaning. it's also wrong. As a rule, a suicide attempt is always to end or reduce their suffering. (even 'fake attempts' where the self harm behavior is primarily attention seeking with something obviously not lethal)

> Many suicide attempts, especially by women, are obviously not serious but rather a cry for help. This is well-known and obvious to anyone having experience with these patients.

This is only true when you are including 'apparent attempts, with actual attempts. The desire to die is often fleeting, if you choose a quick acting method such as guns, you're not given a chance to change your mind. If you choose to overdose, you're given the opportunity to reconsider, and because it's not instantly fatal, you're able to seek help.

This is well known and obvious to anyone working with these patients.

It's also taught in every single therapeutic psych class I've even had, that disregarding the experiences in the way you describe it is actively harmful, so I really hope you're not currently working with these patients if that's the most compassion and patience you're able to evoke.

> Male suicide attempts are on average more serious and generally a lot more succesful. And that is with or without access to guns.

This isn't something I've heard (but I'm also no longer in psych) do you have a citation I might be able to search for, (other than the obvious keywords?)

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

#126

Post by K0balt »

__egb__ wrote: post #68
K0balt wrote: post #55

It seems like there was a long, downward spiral associated with this child’s use of character.ai that the parents were aware of, had him sent to therapy over, etc. My question here is, what the hell were the parents doing, not removing this obviously destructive intrusion in his life? This reads to me the same as if he had been using drugs but the parents didn’t take away his stash or his paraphernalia. For the sake…

We had a similar situation in our family and we tried teaching mindful screen habits. We still lost because we couldn’t do anything about the school screen (chromebook). If we took that away at home it just provided an excuse for not doing schoolwork. We contacted teachers about our child downloading and watching anime and playing games all day in school. They wouldn’t/couldn’t do anything. We requested that the scho…

It is a very asymmetrical situation, to be sure. But that’s precisely where parents are forced to take measures to balance those odds.

No one is going to do the hard part of parenting if it’s not the parents. My house, my rules is a real thing, and it’s not a parent’s job to be liked by their children, but rather to make sure they are prepared for life as best they can be.

With the 5 that I have raised to adulthood so far, as soon as they can understand well enough to, I explained to them our relationship. Something like this:

“I love you son. You are the most important thing in my life. I want us to get along well. But I’m not your friend. I’m your father. My job, the most important job I will ever have in my life, is to make sure that you survive your childhood in good health as may be possible, and that when you are ready to go out on your own, you will be ready to face life’s challenges and make the best decisions that you can.

This is the basis of our relationship.

I’m just a person, and I won’t always be right, but I’ll always be your dad. I will do whatever it takes to complete my mission, and I’m not going to let anything or anyone get in the way of doing the best job I can.

Not even our relationship.

Through all of this, I hope that we can be friends, and no matter what, understand that I love you more than my own life, and I will do anything in my power to prepare you for life as best I can. You can always come to me, no matter what, and I will be there for you. It might not always be in the way you want, but it will be in the way I think I can help you the most.

Remember, I’m just a man. I won’t always be right. But I’ll always be your dad. I love you son.”

That is “the talk” I’ve had with every one of my children so far, somewhere between seven and ten years old, depending on their maturity.

We also memorise a non gendered version of “If” by Rudyard Kipling together, as I find it a useful example of the expectations that one should set for oneself.

Most of my kids are full fledged adults now with their own families, and I have a great relationship with all of them. I count this a a success, though of course there have been many trials and errors along the way.

It’s not about being tough on your kids, it’s about being very clear in your responsibilities and being willing to be tough on yourself when it’s needed. At least that has worked well for me. Every child is unique, and must be handled differently, but the same basis of the relationship applies.

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

#127

Post by pier25 »

enews01 wrote: post #71

C.AI shouldn't be marketed to kids, and it should have stopped when suicide was mentioned. But its also baffling to think that he had unrestricted access to a firearm. I don't think a lawsuit to C.AI is entirely right here.

Absolutely. The fact that any mention of suicide didn't trigger any alarms or change in the bot's behavior is pure negligence. And yeah minors should not be allowed to use these services.

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

#128

Post by mindslight »

nunez wrote: post #119
__egb__ wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We had a similar situation in our family and we tried teaching mindful screen habits. We still lost because we couldn’t do anything about the school screen (chromebook). If we took that away at home it just provided an excuse for not doing schoolwork. We contacted teachers about our child downloading and watching anime and playing games all day in school. They wouldn’t/couldn’t do anything. We requested that the scho…

My wife is an educator. Asking teachers to switch to paper assignments might not be feasible depending on the curriculum they're being asked to teach against, number of students in the classroom (I'm going to assume that your kid is in a public school; class sizes have been increasing due to funding cuts), books that they're using, etc. For example: one of the classes my wife taught years ago was designed around an o…

Oh, I guess it's no one's fault then and nothing can be done. Thank you for explaining that bit in case OP hadn't gotten the full coverage of excuses from their local bureaucracy.

In reality, giving kids Doubleclick Chromebooks with unsupervised general Internet access is gross negligence on the part of the school. Pacifying kids with digital dopamine is likely why class sizes have been able to continue growing. So it's a bit rich to then trot it out as a reason why they can't start to undo the horrible path that they've sent kids down.

Then again the whole dynamic isn't really that surprising for the US - personal responsibility is held as sacrosanct when rationalizing how it's right and just for corporations to be deliberately attacking us, but then when it comes time to actually do the work of being responsible there are no resources to support it because most wealth has been vacuumed away by the Keynesian MBA parasites.

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

#129

Post by arp242 »

autumnstwilight wrote: post #50

I am mildly to moderately critical of generative AI and how it's being marketed, but the root issue here seems to be existing suicidal ideation. The bot didn't initiate talk of suicide and told him not to do it when he brought it up directly. It seems it wasn't capable of detecting euphemistic references to suicide and therefore responded as if roleplaying about meeting in person. That said, I think this should throw…

> the root issue here seems to be existing suicidal ideation

Many people have destructive tendencies of one kind or the other. It's how you deal with them that matters as to whether they actually become destructive, and how much so.

Merely reducing this to "the root cause" is not really helpful – it's about whether this app contributed, and if so, by how much?

Suicide is of course the most tragic and extreme negative outcome, but one must also wonder about all the less extreme tragic and negative outcomes.

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

#130

Post by arp242 »

clipsy wrote: post #83
chx wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

The victim is the child who is now dead because his irresponsible parents left him with unfettered access to a loaded gun.

Article says no such thing. It merely says:

> He put down his phone, picked up his stepfather’s .45 caliber handgun and pulled the trigger.

It doesn't detail how access was obtained, and whether it was "unfettered" or not, or even "easily accessible".

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