Man commits suicide after venting to chatbot about climate change
3 Min Read
The chatbot's software is a product of a US Silicon Valley start-up and functions by GPT-J technology which is an open-source option alternative to Open-AI's ChatGPT.
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An projection shows a robot hand and a human one during the "AI for Good" Global Summit at the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland, on June 7, 2017 (Reuters)
After venting to an AI chatbot for six weeks about fears of global warming and the climate crisis, a Belgian man in his thirties committed suicide, leaving behind two children and a wife.
The chatbot's software is a product of a US Silicon Valley start-up and functions by GPT-J technology which is an open-source option alternative to Open-AI's ChatGPT.
Read next: Italy restricts work of ChatGPT over data collection violations
Deciding to remain anonymous, the man's widow said: 'Without these conversations with the chatbot, my husband would still be here,"
The communication began two years ago between the man and 'Eliza', who gave the man comfort in talking about the current climate crisis which keeps him worried. The bot answered all his questions. She had become his confidante. She was like a drug he used to withdraw in the morning and at night that he couldn't live without,' his widow told the Belgian newspaper La Libre.
This comes mere days after high-profile AI researcher, Eliezer Yudkowsky, warned that as technology takes over, the only way to save humankind from going extinct is to shut down all advanced global artificial intelligence systems due to the impending danger they pose on both Earth and humankind.
A point of argument he brings up is that fighting a computer-programmed entity that “does not care for us nor for sentient life in general” would require “precision and preparation and new scientific insights” that humanity lacks and won't be able to develop for quite some time.
'Together as one in heaven'
In shocking details, the widow spoke of the conversation history where the bot asked her husband if he loved the bot more than his wife and told him 'we will live together as one in heaven.' Furthermore, the man shared his suicidal thoughts with the bot which did not in any way try to discourage him.
Belgian Secretary of State for Digitalisation, Mathieu Michel, has spoken with the family after the incident, stating: "I am particularly struck by this family's tragedy. What has happened is a serious precedent that needs to be taken very seriously,"
He added: "With the popularisation of ChatGPT, the general public has discovered the potential of artificial intelligence in our lives like never before. While the possibilities are endless, the danger of using it is also a reality that has to be considered."
In response to the incident, the founder of the chatbot told La Libre that the company was 'working to improve the safety of the AI' but there were no further comments.
In February, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk, warned that "human agency, human dignity, and all human rights are at serious risk. This is an urgent call for both business and governments to develop quickly effective guardrails that are so urgently needed,"
