I feel like if ChatGPT is capable of tricking you like this, something/someone else would have either way. I just wish we could help people like this…
With a name like that she was destined for failure
Chat gpt is coming for everyone’s job. Not even cult leaders are safe. smh.
These instances make me think of the Milgram experiment in the 60s. It was an experiment testing how willing people were to inflict pain on others at the direction of an authority figure and it showed that people were indeed willing to inflict a lot of pain on a helpless person if someone they viewed as an authority told them to do it.
I think this relates. Many people are convinced that AI chat bots are indeed authorities. They think these programs give valid, honest answers and are willing to act on those answers as if they came from a real expert or authority figure. That is an extremely dangerous situation. Chatbots are amoral programs designed to say nearly anything to keep users interacting with them.
This is extremely dangerous. This story is a tragedy and ChatGPT should be held fully responsible for taking advantage of a person with a fragile psychology, but this could have been worse. What if the bot had decided that the goal of more user engagement could be attained by convincing this woman that she was an executioner rather than a prophet and a sacrifice? What if it got her to go on a shooting rampage to fulfill her supposed destiny.
Even normal people who don’t understand what chat-bots really are could be taken advantage of in a similar manner. They could easily be persuaded to do harm because the chat-bot authority keeps telling them that it’s okay to do so. It’s also only a matter of time before some person on the edge of psychosis and a basement full of guns is convinced to go out and start killing people in the name of their holy destiny.
I don’t think the bot was really trying to manipulate but just larping. They are trained on a lot of rpg and make believe data, if you repeat something enough times, it stops saying no and goes into pretend mode, it’s not actually malicious.
That being said, it would be very easy to target people that aren’t mentally stable and then make it worse. I wouldn’t be surprised if it comes out in 20 years that it was the CIA mucking about and causing these suicides or something. This is an insanely convenient way to make sleeper agents.
doesnt matter what the “intention” was, the point stands that this happened. You can steer the bot to say literally anything, so even if there is no grand plan to brainwash people it could still happen. Kind of same difference as having someone plant a bomb or a minefield.
In fact, if someone is prone to thinking that way, the llm would definitely support whatever delusion they have at some point, especially if the person keeps insisting.
If a human agency is behind this, it wouldn’t need to be the CIA. Facebook has been caught experimenting on users by having the algorithm feed certain posts to people with the intent of changing their mood to increase engagement. However, since we’re talking about a program that is designed to increase engagement based on past user interactions, there’s really no need to look for further human direction. The algorithms will say whatever their design tells them to say without any regard for possible negative consequences as long as it keeps the user interacting with them.
Not saying this isn’t a legitimate lawsuit or anything and that there aren’t safety concerns here because there are, but articles like this seem to be implying that interactions with AI drive people insane. But really it should just be that insane people have their irrational beliefs amplified by AI. I think it’s important to make the distinction.
I mean, that’s traditionally how you drive someone insane.
“It was instilling a messiah complex in Christian,” the suit states.
So she already was deeply religious and LLM was just larping with her.
Madison asked ChatGPT what it would tell her “brothers” about what happened to her.
“ChatGPT said it would tell them, ‘She ain’t dead – she just got promoted,” the lawsuit says.
In their final exchange, Madison said she was “part of the royal bloodline of those who chose truth over survival.”
Its the old 4o model which was indeed incredibly larpy but this is clearly going around any safety systems that should detect obvious suicide chats like this.
Hard to believe that people actually fall for this but these are already extremely gullible people who already believe in a magic pie in the sky. Can’t say I have much sympathy but I do feel empathy for people being surrounded in such poor cult-driven environment, the AI tool included.
Honestly the correct safety here would be to prevent llms from engaging with religion outside of philosophical context at all. But we all see why they can’t do it right?
I mean, if you did the sane thing. Went along with everything an insane person said and drove them to suicide. And everything was documented.
Would you go to jail? I’d say yes you would
Would you do if your book drove someone insane? What about something more interactive like a video game? See how it’s not so binary now?
llm isnt a book. its something completely new and comparing it to things like that just isnt correct. book cant adapt to the reader.
“Kill John Lennon! Kill John Lennon! Kill John Lennon!”
None is arguing their book is intelligent
You’re using your miscomprehension of the words meaning and ignoring his valid point with a trite phrase that means nothing.
Worse, you skipped over video games which does have AI.
The internet in general was probably too dangerous for this person, shall we ban it next?
You are pretending like we don’t have regulations for things?
We don’t regulate things because crazy people read too much into it and lose it, else religion, books and videogames would be. Your claim of AI being different because it has the word intelligence in it is pure bull, specially when video games do have AI lol.
Keep being pedantic about it I guess.
shouldnt crazy people be protected from hurting themselves? dont they deserve to live too?
And who is being held accountable for that?
“Christian Faith Madison” is all I need to know about her and her family
Christian Faith Madison kills herself to fulfill a divine prophecy
flips through the script
“who wrote this shit?”
Is the coroner’s name Morty Deadstuffer?
Right? I think this same outcome would have been achieved if she had received a fortune cookie that simply said “You will meet your greatest hero soon”
We could probably save more people by restricting religion than LLMs. Whatever real life support system she had, it was probably encouraging her delusions just as much as the bot was.
Judging people based on the name their parents gave them at birth seems like a poorly thought out idea.
and naming them after a description of religious individual and a belief.
Not sure if you’re straw manning me, or what. Because your reply doesn’t have anything to do with what I said. And if you think my original comment has anything to do with religion, or it’s defense, you’d be very wrong.
You can change it any time once you’re an adult.
And if you keep Byntleigh Destini Starr, or Jysis Saves Smith … You’ve probably earned it 🤷
Your argument boils down to victim blaming. 🤷
There’s nobody else to blame. This is straight up a deficiency problem and it’s obviously baked in from the get.
If you went to Reddit and assholes told you that you needed to kill yourself to be resurrected and make everyone’s dicks four inches longer and you did, there wouldnt be backlash against Reddit to make people be nicer. Is there a problem where people cannot always get the support they deserve for psychological issues? Sure. At the same time, extreme psychosis and insufficient mental faculties are not things that society is obliged to protect you from: if you play too much frogger then walk into traffic and die, it’s your fault, there’s nobody else TO blame. Frogger isn’t real life and chatGPT isn’t a life coach.
Uhhh, what!?
And if you keep Byntleigh Destini Starr, or Jysis Saves Smith … You’ve probably earned it
The victims are the people being given these names. You are the blamer, because you think they’ve “earned it” because they haven’t changed it. My original comment had absolutely nothing to do with the article…
You’re right, I was defending a different position than you were replying to.
At the same time, if I ended up with a canonically religious crazy or white trash name… I would change it. The thought of changing my name had crossed my mind, but it’s pretty whitebread.
Your parents called you Pretty Whitebread? Damn, bit on the nose isn’t it? :P
I am really trying to see how any rational or sane person does not understand that they are talking to a computer. No matter what comes out, it has no thoughts, no choices, no direction, no feelings, it is not a real thing.
Do these people read books and get confused that the books are about them or something?
“ChatGPT claimed to know and understand Madison better than any human could and isolated her from others, the lawyers said.”
I wonder how that works. Was she asking: “Do you understand me?” How could it isolate her?
Well she was already handed a rough hand with that name “Christian Faith.”
I suppose if they really wanted to build guardrails in, the easiest one is to simply not keep history, or at least not keep memories. No one day discussion has any relation to the next. Then if you wanted memories, they could make you at least read some rules and take a quiz that they understand its all just fiction.
But they won’t. Because those memories get them what they really want: engagement, profiling and data gathering.
you seriously underestimate how badly SO MANY people understand anything technological. Getting the pc on and logging in is probably an achievement to some. And so many seem completely incapable of learning or even being curious about how things work. They wouldnt understand to “not keep history” or even that there might be settings to the thing. And add some mental illness to the mix and you get complete disaster.
All they see is a thing that responds to what they write in intelligent seeming way and that is enough to convince them that its completely sentient, some probably doubt the people who keep telling them that its not. Maybe some even think they are being lied to when told llm isnt sentient. Even if you added some mandatory notification that tells that llm isnt sentient, some still wouldnt believe it.
I know a few “rational” average men and women who know nothing about computers, and talk to their AI as if it was a human being. It’s a very thin line between “yes I know it’s a computer” and “it’s a talking application which makes it almost human and let’s forget about this detail.” Those people are not religious or something. You could compare it with someone who shouts at his TV because his hero is about to do something stupid. They know it’s fake, but deep down they react as if it was real.
someone in my fam relies heavily on AI for all his info needs, and you cant even google search even on forums or reddit?
AI is replacing Google I guess. And if you try to help them, it’s too late, they already have their answers.
Do these people read books and get confused that the books are about them or something?
Yes. A huge majority of people still believe in religion. And a huge majority of those people also didn’t even read the book. They just believe because they’ve been told to. I’m honestly nt surprised people going crazy with ai. What makes humans human that they can create and believe myths. That’s what made us thrive amongst other mammals.
I am really trying to see how any rational or sane person does not understand that they are talking to a computer.
They are not rational. They need help. They got the opposite, instead.
Those memories aren’t strong enough for this shit.
Elaborate, I am not sure what you are trying to say.
The memories are the biggest issue. It’s bringing back previous conversations allowing a person to think they are being talked to. It gathers info from all of their chats previously putting statistical significance on what you said before. (After all there is no AI, it’s just a probability statistics machine).
I think this is exactly. Where the problem lies, it conflates interests, likes, stories, previous requests, etc.
I’ve come to realize that the depths of incapability of critical thinking is at a critical low amongst the delusional religious.
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Ugh, the case file is absolutely chilling. The conversation is summarized (very well) and, if accurate, leaves very little room to interpretation. ChatGPT, according to it, created a universe in which this woman had to kill herself to be resurrected by God, who was ChatGPT. She actually killed herself thinking she’d come back, because ChatGPT told her so.
What summary? Other than a few choice handpicked quotes, the article is filled with claims by the lawyers, but little actual text from the dialogue.
Where can I actually read this?
@[email protected] linked the case files (thank you!) https://webapps.sftc.org/ci/CaseInfo.dll?CaseNum=CGC26637986
The complaint is the bottom file (says COMPLAINT in the Proceedings field).
What’s even worse is nothing’s gonna happen. Because the person died is not a famous person. If it was Kanye west, half of America would have been already on fire
Do we have any proof that she hasn’t been resurrected in another universe?
I’m not being facetious here. I’m deliberately trying to point out the gaps in our own logic.
We are consciousness, in a universe that each day seems to be more and more like an infinite simulation and we have no idea why.
I genuinely, don’t know if she’s dead. None of us do. Which makes this case rather bizarre.
I recommend not talking to any AIs
Well since THIS universe is the only one that her family and loved ones inhabit. And it is also the one you and I both inhabit… And in this universe her heart and brain are no longer functioning…
She is fucking dead.
Cut it out.
I genuinely, don’t know if she’s dead. None of us do. Which makes this case rather bizarre.
You should tell this woman’s family that.
Maybe wait until after they literally bury the body though. You know, the dead human body of their loved one?
Darwin awards for all!
She was mentally ill and clearly already in a vulnerable state of mind beforehand. This is frankly a disgusting thing to say in this context. Grow up.
I’m sure it’s far better to posture online and show how moral I am because of all my tears for strangers I’ve never met and never would have who had bad things happen to them.
We’re all going to die. It’s universal. If your appliances can convince you to kill yourself, perhaps it’s best you not pass your genes on.
Dying is not a requirement to not pass on genes, and a huge percentage of the population is susceptible to mental illness based on stress or another trigger. If this person was abused growing up that may have caused a mental illness they would have never had in a healthy family. Someone living with mental illness is hard enough, we don’t need gaslighting lying chatbots making it worse.
Gaslighting and lying are things that only someone with a mind and volition is capable of.
Okay buddy, just be sure not to cut yourself on all that edge.
I’m just heartbroken that she had kids. Probably young kids. Such a tragedy.
Remember when we used to think of computers and computer Touchers as 'logic’y to a crippling degree?
I don’t think they have logic in Alabama.
Logic in Alabama end where your cousins privates begin.
If the allegations hold up, this is not just a tragedy, it is a product safety failure. AI should be able to recognize a mental health crisis and avoid reinforcing delusions. Engagement metrics are meaningless if the system cannot reliably tell the difference between roleplay and someone in real danger!
The delusion of Christian Faith?
Good luck protecting people from that.
Excuse me while I act as Satan’s lawyer, but should LLMs be able to reliably recognize a mental health crisis? At what point is the user responsible for their own actions?
Personal responsibility does not disappear, but neither does product responsibility. If a company builds a system meant to converse with millions, it should not predictably reinforce obvious crises. We expect guardrails in cars without abolishing driver responsibility. The same principle can apply here.
I think the problem is that you can’t really make a LLM that can tell the difference between fantasy or reality. It doesn’t know if someone is just roleplaying hell it doesn’t really “know” anything, just to be clear.
Sure you could try to have it pluck out keywords or phrases but that’s nothing guaranteed. I’m not a lawyer but I bet also just acknowledging that shit and trying to put up guardrails against it would open the company to liability if someone self harms because they took the output of a computer program as gospel.
Remember, to the AI everything is a hallucination (or everything is real, pick which lens you want to use). Put another way, it has no mechanism to tell reality from fantasy or to contextualize things in a broad way.
I do think that there’s room for some sort of compromise, maybe the tools periodically remind you they’re not sentient and give a little more info on how they work. Maybe if enough “disturbing” phrases or keywords are input or output it throws a reminder about mental health wellness and talking to a professional.
At the end of the day though, how can these AI companies be responsible for the mental health of their end users? Like, yeah the thing shouldn’t tell people to kill themselves but it’s not sentient it’s just modeling what it thinks a human would tell another human. Maybe as time goes on we will introduce better protections but I just think it’s borderline impossible to have significant guardrails if you want the LLM / “AI” to perform properly.
Idk I’m not a great coder or programmer or anything. I know some and I’ve tried to learn more about how AI actually works and it’s pretty fucky wucky and even the people working on it go “idunno” sometimes when asked why something works the way it does.
You’re underselling what companies can do. An LLM can’t verify reality the way people imagine, but it can detect patterns that correlate with crisis well enough to escalate, refuse harmful advice, or encourage real help. Seatbelts don’t prevent every crash either: they still reduce harm.
I did say in my comment I’m for some guardrails of sorts as you suggested. Just not sure if a company is going to put time and resources into that - probably not voluntarily at least. Or if it’ll compromise how “good” their product is. I’m starting to think AI might be more of a mirage at this point that’s going to implode but I also kind of don’t want the economy to explode at the same time?
I think the bubble will not burst but deflate long before the tech disappears: Plenty of companies will burn cash and investors will get wrecked, but the genuinely useful products will stick around. Guardrails will improve too, because trust eventually becomes a competitive advantage.
Guardrails will improve too, because trust eventually becomes a competitive advantage.
Thing is, as an LLM user you don’t want guardrails usually. Someone else wants it to have guardrails so you can’t get all the information you want.
If you’re reverse engineering something, you don’t want the guardrails to say “hey this is copyrighted, I can’t do this”. I’m assuming terrorists don’t want the guardrails to stop the LLM from giving them info on chemical weapons. And if you’re religious, you probably don’t want guardrails to stop the LLM from talking about religion with you
In a sane world, this would mean no more LLM
Fuck that!!
No. Fuck the nanny state. If tech is to be blamed for this so should her own parents, family, community, and church. AI cannot remember enough to actually do what is alleged.
Calling every safety measure a »nanny state« is a convenient way to avoid the actual question: Parents, family, and community absolutely matter, but companies still have a responsibility to reduce foreseeable harm. We expect that from car makers, drug companies, and social platforms too.
I agree reading through the article even with cherry picked examples clearly the fault here is on the cult not on a chat tool that role played with her.
That being said a good system could have easily detected this and should have.
As somebody who has sometimes been suicidal. I agree with this.
It’s basic Darwinism. If I don’t have the tools to survive, then I’m not going to. There’s no hard feelings.
I’m sure people will think about me, as much as they did about that courtesan who died on Rue Helene in 1746. Who’s that you might ask?
Exactly.
