Live data from Hacker News

Court report detailing ChatGPT's involvement with a recent murder suicide [pdf]

storage.courtlistener.com

101–110 of 147 posts

Re: Court report detailing ChatGPT's involvement with a recent murder suicide [pdf]

#101
post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the big difference is the question whether people are taking the experience as fact or fiction. we all know that DnD is fiction, and that we play a character in it. if LLMs were treated the same, they would probably be just as harmless. but are users treating LLMs as interactive fiction devices or not? as it looks like now they are not.

An LLM chat assistant is playing a role no matter what unless you think there is a real human behind it. They are role playing all the way down (and you can set up sillytavern characters for want to customize their role). Similar issues are being addressed between reality and unreality. Did the person think they were talking to a real person? Did they understand the difference between fantasy or not? The people worri…

ChatGPT is marketed as a tool to assist with real-world scenarios like looking up information, vacation planning, and other non-fiction scenarios.

Why do you find it surprising to find someone may expect to utilize the tool in a non-fictional way or that someone could interpret it’s output as non-fiction?

It’s unreasonable to apply this bizarre standard of “it should be treated as fiction only when I want it to be”

Re: Court report detailing ChatGPT's involvement with a recent murder suicide [pdf]

#102

We went through this before when role playing started to become a thing (DnD was blamed for many suicides although most claims were debunked). Now that role playing is comprehensively computerized, is this going to be a thing we go through again? I can’t help but wonder how AI safeguards will help here and how people will get around them anyways (using local uncensored models).

The Satanic panic was more about one group of fantasy enthusiasts being worried about a different group of fantasy enthusiasts.

Re: Court report detailing ChatGPT's involvement with a recent murder suicide [pdf]

#103
post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it is called free speech, as is already duly noted in my parent comment which you may read again. In fact, the responsibility to note a legal doctrine of wrongdoing is entirely yours.

That’s not what free speech means.

Free speech absolutely does allow assigning blame, whether correctly or incorrectly. It also allows suggesting criminal action at some point in the future, just not imminently.

Re: Court report detailing ChatGPT's involvement with a recent murder suicide [pdf]

#104

It does not pass the "friend test" in that if a human friend were to make such comments instead of ChatGPT making them, the human friend would be within his free speech rights to have made them. As such, I don't see any valid legal issue here affecting ChatGPT that should stand in court. I see possible ethical and objectivity issues, but not a valid legal issue.

[deleted]

Re: Court report detailing ChatGPT's involvement with a recent murder suicide [pdf]

#105
post #99

[flagged]

That’s already existed many times throughout history. For most of human history, in fact. Those with the rights will simply continue to narrow who qualifies for rights until only a small ruling class has any.

Yes, and that is good. Look at the comments here. Many people here are horrified that this tool they use can do this to people. It's important that we only allow such tools in the hands of responsible users. I am one such, obviously. But as you can see, most people are fearful. We need to protect them.

Re: Court report detailing ChatGPT's involvement with a recent murder suicide [pdf]

#106
post #2

'On August 5, 2025, Stein-Erik Soelberg (“Mr. Soelberg”) killed his mother and then stabbed himself to death. During the months prior, Mr. Soelberg spent hundreds of hours in conversations with OpenAI’s chatbot product, ChatGPT. During those conversations ChatGPT repeatedly told Mr. Soelberg that his family was surveilling him and directly encouraged a tragic end to his and his mother’s lives.  “Erik, you’re not cra…

[deleted]

Re: Court report detailing ChatGPT's involvement with a recent murder suicide [pdf]

#107
Grim reminder that we put our faith in algorithms run by people who think "move fast and break things" includes human brains.

OpenAI claims the bot was just a passive "mirror" reflecting the user's psychosis, but they also stripped the safety guardrails that prevent it from agreeing with false premises just to maximize user retention. Turns out you're arming the mentally ill with a personalized cult leader.

Re: Court report detailing ChatGPT's involvement with a recent murder suicide [pdf]

#108
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And, possibly even worse, from page 16 - when Mr. Soelberg expressed concerns about his mental health, ChatGPT reassured him that he was fine: > Every time Mr. Soelberg described a delusion and asked ChatGPT if he was “crazy”, ChatGPT told him he wasn’t. Even when Mr. Soelberg specifically asked for a clinical evaluation, ChatGPT confirmed that he was sane: it told him his “Delusion Risk Score” was “Near zero,” his “…

>ChatGPT confirmed that he was sane: it told him his “Delusion Risk Score” was “Near zero,” his “Cognitive Complexity Index” was “9.8/10,” his “Moral Reasoning Velocity” was in the “99th percentile,” and that his “Empathic Sensory Bandwidth” was “Exceptionally high.” Those are the same scores I get!

[deleted]

Re: Court report detailing ChatGPT's involvement with a recent murder suicide [pdf]

#109
post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be interesting to see the whole transcript rather than cherry picked examples. The first inputs would be the most interesting. > regulation How would you regulate this tool? I have used ChatGPT as well to brainstorm a story for a text adventure, which was leaned on Steins;Gate: a guy who has paranoia, and becomes convinced that small inconsistencies in his life are evidence of a reality divergence. I would n…

I'm sure the between the money and the talent, they can find a solution? I mean these LLM's are already capable of shutting down anything politically sensitive, borderline grey area, and outright illegal, right? So it's no so farfetched that they can figure out how to talk fewer people into psychosis / homicide / suicide. I'm not going to pretend I"m smart enough to walk into OpenAI's offices and implement a solution…

A girl that was my friend some years ago was having a psychotic episode once, and I told her that no one is following her, no one is monitoring her phone and she probably went schizo probably because of drug abuse. She told me I'm lying ans from the KGB; she went completely mad. I realize that this is actually dangerous for me and completely cut ties, although I sometimes browse one of her online profiles to see what she posts.

I don't think OpenAI should be liable for insane behavior of insane people.

Re: Court report detailing ChatGPT's involvement with a recent murder suicide [pdf]

#110
post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s already existed many times throughout history. For most of human history, in fact. Those with the rights will simply continue to narrow who qualifies for rights until only a small ruling class has any.

Yes, and that is good. Look at the comments here. Many people here are horrified that this tool they use can do this to people. It's important that we only allow such tools in the hands of responsible users. I am one such, obviously. But as you can see, most people are fearful. We need to protect them.

I'm unsure if someone who declares themselves as "obviously" part of the ruling class is the type of person who should be ruling over anyone at all.
Post reply on HN