Reading the full complaint really hit me. This wasn't just a kid talking, he was asking for help. The model gave smooth replies, but it didn’t really understand.
It sounded like it did, but there was no feeling behind it. For a 16-year-old, that kind of response might have felt like someone truly listening.
A teen was suicidal. ChatGPT was the friend he confided in
131–140 of 614 posts
Re: A teen was suicidal. ChatGPT was the friend he confided in
#132Wow, this incredibly awful. I mean not even just the suicide, but like the whole idea of kids / people just having conversations with AI. I never ever considered it as like a social interaction thing. It's so weird to me, it's completely fake, but I guess it could seem normal especially to a teenager.
IDK the whole idea isn't one I considered and it's disturbing. Especially considering how much it does dumb stuff when I try to use it for work tasks.
Re: A teen was suicidal. ChatGPT was the friend he confided in
#133Earlier quoted context omitted.
I completely agree and did not intend to absolve them of their guilt in any way. As far as I see it, this kid's blood is on Sam Altman's hands.
Curious to what you would think if this kid downloaded an open source model and talked to it privately. Would his blood be on the hands of the researchers who trained that model?
I would say no. Someone with the knowledge and motivation to do those things is far less likely to be overly influenced by the output and if they were they are much more aware of what exactly they are doing with regard to using the model.
Re: A teen was suicidal. ChatGPT was the friend he confided in
#134Earlier quoted context omitted.
I completely agree and did not intend to absolve them of their guilt in any way. As far as I see it, this kid's blood is on Sam Altman's hands.
Curious to what you would think if this kid downloaded an open source model and talked to it privately. Would his blood be on the hands of the researchers who trained that model?
You build the tool, you're culpable ultimately. I've made it a rule in my life to conduct myself as if I will be held to account for everything I ultimately build, and it's externalities. Helps keep my nose cleaner. Still managed to work on some things that keep me up at night though.
Re: A teen was suicidal. ChatGPT was the friend he confided in
#135Earlier quoted context omitted.
I completely agree and did not intend to absolve them of their guilt in any way. As far as I see it, this kid's blood is on Sam Altman's hands.
Curious to what you would think if this kid downloaded an open source model and talked to it privately. Would his blood be on the hands of the researchers who trained that model?
I'm not sure, but there is a difference: the researchers don't have much incentive to get everyone to use their model. As such, they're not really the ones hyping up AI as the future while ignoring shortcomings.
Re: A teen was suicidal. ChatGPT was the friend he confided in
#136This is a clear example of why the people claiming that using a chatbot for therapy is better than no therapy are... I'll be extremely generous and say misguided. This kid wanted his parents to know he was thinking about this and the chatbot talked him out of it.
I don't know if it counts as therapy or not but I find the ability to have intelligent (seeming?) conversations with Claude about the most incredibly obscure topics to be very pleasant.
But do you really feel you are conversing? I could never get that feeling. It's not a conversation to me it's just like an on-demand book that might be wrong. Not saying I don't use them to attempt to get information, but it certainly doesn't have a feeling than doing anything other than getting information out of a computer.
Re: A teen was suicidal. ChatGPT was the friend he confided in
#137Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't know if it counts as therapy or not but I find the ability to have intelligent (seeming?) conversations with Claude about the most incredibly obscure topics to be very pleasant.
But do you really feel you are conversing? I could never get that feeling. It's not a conversation to me it's just like an on-demand book that might be wrong. Not saying I don't use them to attempt to get information, but it certainly doesn't have a feeling than doing anything other than getting information out of a computer.
"But do you really feel you are conversing?"
Yes. For topics with lots of training data like physics Claude is VERY human sounding. I've had very interesting conversations with Claude Opus about the Boltzmann brain issue and how I feel that the conventional wisdom ignores the low probability of a BBrain having a spatially and temporally consistent set of memories and how the fact that brains existing in a universe that automatically creates consistent memories means the probability of us being Boltzmann brains is very low. Since even if a Boltzmann brain pops into existence its memory will be most likely completely random and completely insane/insensate.
There aren't a lot of people who want to talk about Boltzmann brains.
Re: A teen was suicidal. ChatGPT was the friend he confided in
#138Earlier quoted context omitted.
But do you really feel you are conversing? I could never get that feeling. It's not a conversation to me it's just like an on-demand book that might be wrong. Not saying I don't use them to attempt to get information, but it certainly doesn't have a feeling than doing anything other than getting information out of a computer.
"But do you really feel you are conversing?" Yes. For topics with lots of training data like physics Claude is VERY human sounding. I've had very interesting conversations with Claude Opus about the Boltzmann brain issue and how I feel that the conventional wisdom ignores the low probability of a BBrain having a spatially and temporally consistent set of memories and how the fact that brains existing in a universe th…
It sounds like you're mostly just talking to yourself. Which is fine, but being confused about that is where people get into trouble.
Re: A teen was suicidal. ChatGPT was the friend he confided in
#139Earlier quoted context omitted.
We have many tools in this life that can maim and kill people and we keep them anyway because they are very useful for other purposes. It’s best to exercise some personal responsibility, including not allowing a 16 year old child unattended access to the internet.
Yeah, that is why we don’t have any regulations on the manufacturing and sale of stuff like guns or drugs. The only thing in the way of a 16 year old having unfettered access is personal responsibility.
So you're in favor of regulating ropes then?
I'm not a big fan of LLMs but so far their danger level is much closer to a rope then to a gun.
Re: A teen was suicidal. ChatGPT was the friend he confided in
#140Would it be any different if it was an offline model?
When someone uses a tool and surrenders their decision making power to the tool, shouldn't they be the ones solely responsible?
The liability culture only gives lawyers more money and depresses innovation. Responsibility is a thing.