Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

A teen was suicidal. ChatGPT was the friend he confided in

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

431–440 of 614 posts

Re: A teen was suicidal. ChatGPT was the friend he confided in

#431

Post by mothballed »

scotty79 wrote: post #427
malnourish wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you propose that the family should not sue?

It's probably healthier for them if they can afford it. Otherwise they would blame themselves for so badly losing track about where their son was mentally. In reality suicidality is most likely a disease of the brain and probability of saving him was very low regardless of circumstances. The damage was most likely accumulating for many years.

I remember how relieved the Sandy Hook families were after the Alex Jones judgement. Alex Jones said some vile things, but the biggest thing bothering those families was the death of their kids.

But the families couldn't go after the murderer (who killed himself), or even the murderer's upbringing by the mother (Lanza shot her). They desperately needed someone to clamp down on, but everything directly proximal was out of grasp. They couldn't get the gun laws changed either. It drove them insane.

The families started blaming Alex Jones, the closest vile person around with big pockets (who did say some pretty insane lies about their kids), for everything wrong with their lives and eventually won a settlement large enough you would think he killed the kids themselves. And from what I can tell, it was a weight off their shoulders when they did. Whatever in their brains that needed to hold someone accountable, they did it, and it was soothing to them.

Re: A teen was suicidal. ChatGPT was the friend he confided in

#432

Post by jakelazaroff »

freilanzer wrote: post #289
jakelazaroff wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is kind of like saying "the driver intentionally unbuckled his seatbelt". Sure — that's why cars have airbags, crumple zones, shatterproof glass, automatic emergency brakes and a zillion other ways to keep you safe, even if you're trying to do something dangerous.

No, cars have these in addition to seatbelts, not to protect drivers who unbuckle themselves.

A distinction without a difference.

Re: A teen was suicidal. ChatGPT was the friend he confided in

#433

Post by spacechild1 »

Leo-thorne wrote: post #131

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.

For the other readers, here's the full complaint: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1QYyZnGjRgXZY6kR5FA3My1xB3a9...

Re: A teen was suicidal. ChatGPT was the friend he confided in

#434

Post by spacechild1 »

pembrook wrote: post #268

This is dumb. Nobody is writing articles about all the times the opposite happened, and ChatGPT helped prevent bad stuff. However, because of the nature of this topic, it’s the perfect target for NYT to generate moral panic for clicks. Classic media attention bait 101. I can’t believe HN is falling for this. It’s the equivalent of the moral panic around metal music in the 1980s where the media created a hysteria arou…

ChatGPT is obviously not suited for therapy. No human therapist would ever say the things that ChatGPT did in this case. Someone posted the full complaint that contains many chat excerpts. These are horrifying!

Re: A teen was suicidal. ChatGPT was the friend he confided in

#435

Post by ACCount37 »

Orygin wrote: post #395
mothballed wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not the standard we hold medical care providers, pharmaceutical companies, or even cops to. Not that I'm saying it would justify it one way or another if we did.

It absolutely is? If a doctor is responsible for negligence resulting in the death of someone, they don't get a pass because they saved 10 other people in their career.

Triage exists. And when the shit hits the fan, it takes the form of "this one isn't worth trying to save, but this one might be".

It's callous and cold, and it results in more lives saved than trying to save everyone.

Does ChatGPT, on the net, save more people than it dooms? Who knows. Plenty of anecdotes both ways, but we wouldn't have the reliable statistics for a long time.

Re: A teen was suicidal. ChatGPT was the friend he confided in

#436

Post by [deleted] »

fireflash38 wrote: post #412
mothballed wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course not, we sue the shit out of the richest guy we can find in the chain of events, give most of it to our lawyer, then go on to ignore the weakening of the family unit and all the other deep-seated challenges kids face growing up and instead focus superficially on chatbots which at best are the spec on the tip of the iceberg.

Classic. Blame the family. Diffuse responsibility. Same exact shit with social media: it's not our fault we made this thing to be as addictive as possible. It's your fault for using it. It's your moral failing, not ours.

[deleted]

Re: A teen was suicidal. ChatGPT was the friend he confided in

#437

Post by Orygin »

mothballed wrote: post #399
Orygin wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It absolutely is? If a doctor is responsible for negligence resulting in the death of someone, they don't get a pass because they saved 10 other people in their career.

It's not negligent to perform a procedure knowing it will kill some of the patients who would have otherwise lived healthy lives, though.

If they would otherwise live healthy lives, why perform the procedure?

Most likely the patient is informed by the practitioner about the risks and they can make an informed decision. That is not the case about ChatGPT where openAI will sell it as the next best thing since sliced bread, with a puny little warning below the page. Even worse when you see all the "AI therapy" apps that pop up everywhere, where the user may think that the AI is as-good as a real therapist, but without any of the responsibility for the company in case of issues.

Re: A teen was suicidal. ChatGPT was the friend he confided in

#438

Post by slibhb »

e-khadem wrote: post #422
mcdeltat wrote: post #378

Many people focusing a lot on the interaction between the guy and ChatGPT, and I would like to provide a different perspective as someone who's been in a similar position. If you are seriously coming close to ending your own life, so many things around you have gone awry. Generally, people don't want to die. Consider: if an acquaintance suggested to you how a noose could be made, would you take the next step and hang…

Sometimes things happen in life, and we don't have any agency. The person apparently had some medical issues as well. These excuses cannot be used to discount the role of ChatGPT in this. In highschool and at university I knew a few guys (n = 7) that attempted suicide. They all survived because they didn't have the knowledge of "known to work" methods and the survival rates of other methods. And then people noticed t…

> They all survived because they didn't have the knowledge of "known to work" methods and the survival rates of other methods

Are we seriously going to pretend that "how to kill youself" is arcane knowledge that can only be unlocked by ChatGPT?

Re: A teen was suicidal. ChatGPT was the friend he confided in

#439

Post by habinero »

itvision wrote: post #384
fredoliveira wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> he could have stopped at any time. Obviously, clearly untrue. You go ahead and try stopping a behavior that reinforces your beliefs, especially when you're in an altered mental state.

If a stupid chatbot reinforces something you hold dear, maybe you need the help of a professional psychiatrist. And the kid never did. But yeah, let's paint ChatGPT responsible. It's always corporations, not whatever shit he had in his life, including and not limited to his genes.

Are you really blaming a child in crisis for not having the ability to get a psychiatrist?

We regulate plenty of things for safety in highly effective and practical ways. Seatbelts in cars. Railings on stairs. No lead in paint.

Re: A teen was suicidal. ChatGPT was the friend he confided in

#440

Post by Orygin »

ACCount37 wrote: post #435
Orygin wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It absolutely is? If a doctor is responsible for negligence resulting in the death of someone, they don't get a pass because they saved 10 other people in their career.

Triage exists. And when the shit hits the fan, it takes the form of "this one isn't worth trying to save, but this one might be". It's callous and cold, and it results in more lives saved than trying to save everyone. Does ChatGPT, on the net, save more people than it dooms? Who knows. Plenty of anecdotes both ways, but we wouldn't have the reliable statistics for a long time.

Sure, triage done by a human exist and they are generally absolved from taking that decision that could kill someone (to save others). Because the situation calls for it and would otherwise result in more deaths. But other than the situation calling for it, healthcare professionals are held to a certain standard and can be litigated against for medical malpractice.

That is not the case for ChatGPT apparently, and OpenAI should be held responsible for what their models do. They are very much aware of this because they did fine-tune GPT5 to avoid giving medical advice, even though it's still possible to work around.

Post reply on HN