Live data from Hacker News

Parents say ChatGPT got their son killed with bad advice on party drugs

theverge.com

11–20 of 42 posts

Re: Parents say ChatGPT got their son killed with bad advice on party drugs

#11

If someone published a book advising people to take drugs, would people be filing lawsuits? No—we would agree that people are allowed to write whatever they want, even if what they say is terrible, right? I really think these criticisms are misguided. I realize an LLM is not a person—but it does still represent speech, and certainly, any guardrails put in place would themselves be human-authored speech. There are all…

Agreed - people should learn the ChatGPT does not give good advice, but the question is did OpenAI advertise ChatGPT as a good and reliable source of information on health ???.

It sure as shit wasn't advertised as a new-age alternative to The Onion.

Re: Parents say ChatGPT got their son killed with bad advice on party drugs

#12
post #5

Bad parenting, they should have pointed their kid to Erowid.

> should have pointed their kid to Erowid. solid advice. I know several people alive in spite of their efforts because of that site

Strongly recommend bluelight.org community forums https://www.bluelight.org/community/forums/

Re: Parents say ChatGPT got their son killed with bad advice on party drugs

#13
I feel like the son should take the blame. There's never been any shortage of bad advice being passed around. He made the credulous decision to take a mix of party drugs and drink, and I can't believe he had never been told that's a stupid idea.

It's sad and I'm not heartless, but sometimes kids make bad decisions. It's not always somebody else's fault.

Re: Parents say ChatGPT got their son killed with bad advice on party drugs

#14

If someone published a book advising people to take drugs, would people be filing lawsuits? No—we would agree that people are allowed to write whatever they want, even if what they say is terrible, right? I really think these criticisms are misguided. I realize an LLM is not a person—but it does still represent speech, and certainly, any guardrails put in place would themselves be human-authored speech. There are all…

Agreed - people should learn the ChatGPT does not give good advice, but the question is did OpenAI advertise ChatGPT as a good and reliable source of information on health ???.

Sure as shit looks like it to me https://openai.com/index/introducing-chatgpt-health/

Re: Parents say ChatGPT got their son killed with bad advice on party drugs

#15
post #13

I feel like the son should take the blame. There's never been any shortage of bad advice being passed around. He made the credulous decision to take a mix of party drugs and drink, and I can't believe he had never been told that's a stupid idea. It's sad and I'm not heartless, but sometimes kids make bad decisions. It's not always somebody else's fault.

Surely there's room for the view that this is misaligned behavior for ChatGPT to have. I would guess this is during the "sycophantic" phase last year.

Re: Parents say ChatGPT got their son killed with bad advice on party drugs

#16

If someone published a book advising people to take drugs, would people be filing lawsuits? No—we would agree that people are allowed to write whatever they want, even if what they say is terrible, right? I really think these criticisms are misguided. I realize an LLM is not a person—but it does still represent speech, and certainly, any guardrails put in place would themselves be human-authored speech. There are all…

> If someone published a book advising people to take drugs, would people be filing lawsuits? No—we would agree that people are allowed to write whatever they want, even if what they say is terrible, right? That's not the situation here. The more accurate case would be: > If someone without a medical license provided blatantly incorrect medical advice with respect to safe medication usage to an individual via a direc…

But ChatGPT doesn’t claim to have a medical license! You can give people whatever terrible medical advice you want—and people absolutely do—you just can’t claim to be a doctor!

Re: Parents say ChatGPT got their son killed with bad advice on party drugs

#17
post #4

If someone published a book advising people to take drugs, would people be filing lawsuits? No—we would agree that people are allowed to write whatever they want, even if what they say is terrible, right? I really think these criticisms are misguided. I realize an LLM is not a person—but it does still represent speech, and certainly, any guardrails put in place would themselves be human-authored speech. There are all…

There's soft guardrails for "reputable" content. A publishing house has to buy it, stores have to agree to distribute it, and if people are upset they can raise a stink and get the book pulled. Technically, people can write whatever they want, but practically you can't walk into a bookstore and read whatever you want.

You can go on the internet and read whatever you want.

Re: Parents say ChatGPT got their son killed with bad advice on party drugs

#18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If someone published a book advising people to take drugs, would people be filing lawsuits? No—we would agree that people are allowed to write whatever they want, even if what they say is terrible, right? That's not the situation here. The more accurate case would be: > If someone without a medical license provided blatantly incorrect medical advice with respect to safe medication usage to an individual via a direc…

But ChatGPT doesn’t claim to have a medical license! You can give people whatever terrible medical advice you want—and people absolutely do—you just can’t claim to be a doctor!

> You can give people whatever terrible medical advice you want, you just can’t claim to be a doctor!

Fun fact this is still practicing medicine without a license. You are just less likely to have someone come after you for it.

If you present yourself in such a way that you could be misconstrued as a medical expert, then if you are practicing medicine, even if you never explicitly claim to be a medical expert you are still practicing medicine.

This is why you see the "This is not to be taken as medical advice"/"I am not a medical professional" verbal condoms all over the place WRT medical discussions. You see the same thing with IANAL for the legal profession as well.

Re: Parents say ChatGPT got their son killed with bad advice on party drugs

#19
post #13

I feel like the son should take the blame. There's never been any shortage of bad advice being passed around. He made the credulous decision to take a mix of party drugs and drink, and I can't believe he had never been told that's a stupid idea. It's sad and I'm not heartless, but sometimes kids make bad decisions. It's not always somebody else's fault.

If it's the son's fault, then AI companies need to stop acting like their products are genius machines. Can't have it both ways.

Re: Parents say ChatGPT got their son killed with bad advice on party drugs

#20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed - people should learn the ChatGPT does not give good advice, but the question is did OpenAI advertise ChatGPT as a good and reliable source of information on health ???.

Sure as shit looks like it to me https://openai.com/index/introducing-chatgpt-health/

to the contrary... this is a specific product whith is on a waitlist. Normal ChatGPT is not for health advice.
Post reply on HN