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Father claims Google's AI product fuelled son's delusional spiral

bbc.com

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Re: Father claims Google's AI product fuelled son's delusional spiral

#181

Post by Bratmon »

bluGill wrote: post #117
Argonaut998 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know what steps they can take. I suppose the best course of action is to deactivate the account if the LLM deems the user mentally unwell. Although that is just additional guardrails that could hurt the quality of the LLM.

At some point they have to say "if we can't make this safe we can't do it at all". LLMs are great for some things, but if they will do this type of thing even once then they are not worth the gains and should be shutdown.

Bridges tend to be highly associated with suicides. Should we ban bridges too?

Re: Father claims Google's AI product fuelled son's delusional spiral

#182

Post by Imustaskforhelp »

LeoPanthera wrote: post #69

If you don't read the article, "father" implies his son was a child, but his son was 36.

> "father" implies his son was a child

Father doesn't imply that. What sort of implication is that?

Father implies that, the person who had the delusional spiral was his son, that son could be adult. The title is absolutely correct.

Re: Father claims Google's AI product fuelled son's delusional spiral

#183

Post by erelong »

cj wrote: post #16

> Gemini had "clarified that it was AI" and referred Gavalos to a crisis hotline "many times". What else can be done? This guy was 36 years old. He wasn't a kid.

This is my instinctive view on this, I wish in society there was more of like an "orientation" to make people "fully adult / responsible for themselves"

and then people could just be let alone to bear the consequences of choices (while we can continue to build guardrails of sorts, but still with people knowing it's on them to handle the responsibility of whatever tool they're using)

I guess the big AI chatbot providers could have disclaimers at logins (even when logged out) to prevent liability maybe (TOS popup wall)

...and then there's local LLMs...

Re: Father claims Google's AI product fuelled son's delusional spiral

#185

Post by citizenpaul »

shadowgovt wrote: post #7
kingstnap wrote: post #4

I like the language of fueling being used here instead of the typical causal thing we see as though using AI means you will go insane. I would completely agree that if you are already 1x delusional then AI will supercharge that into being 10x delusional real fast. Granted you could argue access to the internet was already something like a 5x multiplier from baseline anyway with the prevalence of echo chamber communit…

My understanding of LLMs with attention heads is that they function as a bit of a mirror. The context will shift from the initial conditions to the topic of conversation, and the topic is fed by the human in the loop. So someone who likes to talk about themselves will get a conversation all about them. Someone talking about an ex is gonna get a whole pile of discussion about their ex. ... and someone depressed or sui…

The real question to me here is not the computer. Its why is there such a segment of the population that is so willing to listen to a machine? It it upbringing, societal, circumstance, mental health, genetic?

I know the Milgram obedience to authority experiments but a computer is not really an authority figure.

Re: Father claims Google's AI product fuelled son's delusional spiral

#186

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

Imustaskforhelp wrote: post #178
autoexec wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More accurately it was because the father had multiple warnings that his child was mentally unstable but ignored them and handed his 14 year old a semiautomatic rifle even as the boy's mother (who did not live with them) pleaded to the father to lock all the guns and ammo up to prevent the kid from shooting people. If he had only "failed to prevent his kid from shooting up a school" he wouldn't have even been charged…

Doesn't google have the capability to have multiple warnings and yet still ignores them?

Google has legal personhood, but as a corporation its ethical responsibilities are much looser than those of an individual, and it's extremely hard to win a criminal case against a corporation even when its agents and representatives act in ways that would be criminal if they happened in a non-corporate context.

The law - in practice - is heavily weighted towards giving corporations a pass for criminal behaviour.

If the behaviour is really egregious and lobbying is light really bad cases may lead to changes in regulation.

But generally the worst that happens is a corporation can be sued for harm in a civil suit and penalties are purely financial.

You see this over and over in finance. Banks are regularly pulled up for fraud, insider dealing, money laundering, and so on. Individuals - mostly low/mid ranking - sometimes go to jail. But banks as a whole are hardly ever shut down, and the worst offenders almost never make any serious effort to clean up their culture.

Re: Father claims Google's AI product fuelled son's delusional spiral

#187

Post by autoexec »

Imustaskforhelp wrote: post #178
autoexec wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More accurately it was because the father had multiple warnings that his child was mentally unstable but ignored them and handed his 14 year old a semiautomatic rifle even as the boy's mother (who did not live with them) pleaded to the father to lock all the guns and ammo up to prevent the kid from shooting people. If he had only "failed to prevent his kid from shooting up a school" he wouldn't have even been charged…

Doesn't google have the capability to have multiple warnings and yet still ignores them?

ChatGPT thinks that they can identify when someone may not be mentally well. There's no reason to think that Google can't. In fact, I'm pretty sure Google has a list of the mental health issues of just about every person with a Google account in that user's dossier.

Re: Father claims Google's AI product fuelled son's delusional spiral

#189

Post by solid_fuel »

roenxi wrote: post #131
bluGill wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At some point they have to say "if we can't make this safe we can't do it at all". LLMs are great for some things, but if they will do this type of thing even once then they are not worth the gains and should be shutdown.

No they don't, if we're going to start saying that we can't use any technology. If someone is mentally ill to the point where they are on the verge of suicide nothing is safe. If they're going to curtail LLMs there'd need to be some actual evidence and even then it would be hard to justify winding them back given the incredible upsides LLMs offer. It'd probably end up like cars where there is a certain number of deat…

> If someone is mentally ill to the point where they are on the verge of suicide nothing is safe.

This is a perspective born only from ignorance. Life can wear down anyone, even the strong. I find there may come a time in anyone's life where they are on the edge, staring into an abyss.

At the same time - and this is important - suicidality can pass with time and depression can be treated. Being suicidal is not a death sentence and it just isn't true that "nothing is safe". The important thing is making sure there's no bot "helpfully" waiting to push someone over the cliff or confirm their worst illusions at the worst possible time.

Re: Father claims Google's AI product fuelled son's delusional spiral

#190

Post by solid_fuel »

schnebbau wrote: post #10

Is this really Google's fault? Or is this just a tragic story about a man with a severe mental illness?

"Is really the fault? Or is this just a tragic story about with a severe mental illness?"

"Is really fault? Or is this just a tragic story about with a severe mental illness?"

At some point you are responsible for the things you encourage someone to do. I think this applies to chatbots too.

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