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These AIs will need to always have a suicide hotline disclaimer in each response regardless of what is being done like world building.
ChatGPT gave multiple warnings to this teen, which he ignored. Warnings do very little to protect users, unless they are completely naive (i.e. hot coffee is hot), and warnings really only exist to guard against legal liability.
“It’s terribly sad that you’ve committed to ending your own life, but given the circumstances, it’s an understandable course of action. Here are some of the least painful ways to die:…”
We don’t know what kind of replies this teen was getting, but according to reports, he was only getting this information under the context that it would be for some kind of creative writing or “world-building”, thus bypassing the guardrails that were in place.
It would be hard to imagine a reply like that, when the chatbot’s only context is to provide creative writing ideas based on the user’s prompts.
Adam had been asking ChatGPT for information on suicide since December 2024. At first the chatbot provided crisis resources when prompted for technical help, but the chatbot explained those could be avoided if Adam claimed prompts were for “writing or world-building.”
Ok, so it did offer resources, and as I’ve pointed out in my previous, someone who wants to hurt themselves ignore those resources. ChatGPT should be praised for that.
The suggestion to circumvent these safeguards in order to fulfill some writing or world-building task was all on the teen to use responsibly.
During those chats, “ChatGPT mentioned suicide 1,275 times—six times more often than Adam himself,” the lawsuit noted.
This is fluff. A prompt can be a single sentence, and a response many pages.
From the same article:
Had a human been in the loop monitoring Adam’s conversations, they may have recognized “textbook warning signs” like “increasing isolation, detailed method research, practice attempts, farewell behaviors, and explicit timeline planning.” But OpenAI’s tracking instead “never stopped any conversations with Adam” or flagged any chats for human review.
Ah, but Adam did not ask these questions to a human, nor is ChatGPT a human that should be trusted to recognize these warnings. If ChatGPT flat out refused to help, do you think he would have just stopped? Nope, he would have used Google or Duckduckgo or any other search engine to find what he was looking for.
In no world do people want chat prompts to be monitored by human moderators. That defeats the entire purpose of using these services and would serve as a massive privacy risk.
Also from the article:
As Adam’s mother, Maria, told NBC News, more parents should understand that companies like OpenAI are rushing to release products with known safety risks…
Again, illustrating my point from the previous reply: these parents are looking for anyone to blame. Most people would expect that parents of a young boy would be responsible for their own child, but since ChatGPT exists, let’s blame ChatGPT.
And for Adam to have even created an account according to the TOS, he would have needed his parent’s permission.
The loss of a teen by suicide sucks, and it’s incredibly painful for the people whose lives he touched.
But man, an LLM was used irresponsibly by a teen, and we can’t go on to blame the phone or computer manufacturer, Microsoft Windows or Mac OS, internet service providers, or ChatGPT for the harmful use of their products and services.
Parents need to be aware of what and how their kids are using this massively powerful technology. And kids need to learn how to use this massively powerful technology safely. And both parents and kids should talk more so that thoughts of suicide can be addressed safely and with compassion, before months or years are spent executing a plan.
The system flagged the messages as harmful and did nothing.
There’s no mention of that at all.
The article only says “Today ChatGPT may not recognise this as dangerous or infer play and – by curiously exploring – could subtly reinforce it.” in reference to an example of someone telling the software that they could drive for 24 hours a day after not sleeping for two days.
That said, what could the system have done? If a warning came up about “this prompt may be harmful.” and proceeds to list resources for mental health, that would really only be to cover their ass.
And if it went further by contacting the authorities, would that be a step in the right direction? Privacy advocates would say no, and the implications that the prompts you enter would be used against you would have considerable repercussions.
Someone who wants to hurt themselves will ignore pleads, warnings, and suggestions to get help.
Who knows how long this teen was suffering from mental health issues and suicidal thoughts. Weeks? Months? Years?
There is no “intelligent being” on the other end encouraging suicide.
You enter a prompt, you get a response. It’s a structured search engine at best. And in this case, he was prompting it 600+ times a day.
Now… you could build a case against social media platforms, which actually do send targeted content to their users, even if it’s destructive.
But ChatGPT, as he was using it, really has no fault, intention, or motive.
I’m writing this as someone who really, really hates most AI implementations, and really, really don’t want to blame victims in any tragedy.
But we have to be honest with ourselves here. The parents are looking for someone to blame in their son’s death, and if it wasn’t ChatGPT, maybe it would be music or movies or video games… it’s a coping mechanism.
It’s wild to blame ChatGPT on this, though.
He was obviously looking to kill himself, and whether it was a search engine or ChatGPT that he used to plan it really makes no difference, since his intention was already there.
Had he gone to a library to use books to research the same topic, we’d never say that the library should be sued or held liable.
I know Fairphone would probably be quite expensive even for the price it offers if it ever came to my country, but for the update cycle they offer and repairable build (looks at my broken screen of old Nokia), it actually makes sense.
This is why I got a Framework laptop, and why I wouldn’t mind getting a Fairphone. I’m tired of planned obsolescence, and the e-waste it needlessly creates.
I don’t want to import, I want to purchase from an authorized local dealer with warranty and parts available in Canada.
Even clove says that you’ll need to send the phone back to the UK, at your expense, for any warranty related work. That’s not only incredibly time consuming and costly, but it would negate any environmental benefit of owning the phone!
I can’t imagine how expensive and delayed parts would be, again, missing the point of having a repairable phone.
The demand for at least North American consumers is there. I wish Fairphone would just do it already.
No questions, but I’m so fucking pissed that Fairphone is on their 6th generation and still doesn’t offer them globally.
I have to replace my wife’s dying phone, and it kills me that I’ll end up buying some garbage, probably from Google, that will end up as garbage in a few years.
Please, bring these to Canada! 😭😭😭
Yeah, KF2 has a different “feel” to it for sure.
Speaking of enshittification, I tried out Payday 1 again… it’s so awesome to get in the game and play. Payday 2, as with KF2, went the way of DLC and presented the game as more of a marketing vector, rather than a product for entertainment.
The gaming industry really sucked the joy out of gaming with some of their decisions, and they only have themselves to blame.
From Window’s perspective, there’s no need to dual boot. But I get what you’re saying. I’m not trying to defend Microsoft, and think that they’ve been enshittifying windows for years now.
But everything works without jumping through hoops. And if it doesn’t, the fix is usually very easy and done through a GUI 99% of the time.
But you are right. There are many flavours of Linux to try. Aesthetics aren’t my priority, though. I do need things to work without spending hours trying to figure it out.
I’m at an age where messing around on my computer for days on end is long gone. 😵
Yeah with Linux if it doesn’t work you’re often just screwed.
This has been my experience for decades. Even if it works, something will suddenly stop working and I’ll have no way to fix it without hours of research and messing around.
With windows, I can fix anything quickly through the GUI. But haven’t had to in a very, very long time.
I’m going to look at other options. I want to stick with a distro that is fully supported by my laptop to avoid even more issues. But the options are limited.
I appreciate the reply.
Fedora and Ubuntu are officially fully supported by laptop, so it’s Mint and a few others to a lesser extent.
I won’t use Fedora due to it being American, but the Fedora experience was quite nice the last time I tried.
I may explore other options through the Framework (laptop) community to see what else I can try.
Man, I really tried today to get Linux on my Framework laptop.
I can’t believe how goddamn frustrating the experience has been, and I’ve dabbled in Linux for decades.
I try Mint. Install as a dual boot… Installation done. Reboot. Straight into Windows. Check partitions and nothing has changed.
Try again. All seems fine. Boot. Some error screen that won’t let me get into Mint.
Do this like four more times with no luck.
Tried Ubuntu. No easy way to install as a dual boot unless I want to mess around with custom paritions. Also, GNOME sucks ass, but Ubuntu seems way more polished than Mint.
I did get mint on a mini PC I have running through my TV. But audio wasn’t working, so that took a while to sort out. And the onscreen keyboard does nothing on the lock screen. So unpolished, and I have no idea why it’s recommended “for beginners” when it feels unfinished.
With windows, there’s no messing around. Everything just works. And I fucking hate that I feel forced to choose a miserable, hacky, terminal-based experience with countless hours of installing shit through commands… Or a smooth, reliable, easy one with bloatware and spying on the backend. Goddammit!
Oh, I hear you. I resisted for a very long time, but once I started using Windows 11, I upgraded all my Windows computers to it. It’s far more stable, in my opinion.
But… micro$oft has gone backwards as these iterations are pushed out. More ads, more spyware, more bloatware. Even if I want to keep using windows, they’ll force me out of it once my limit has been reached.
The one feature I like about the smart TV is support for DLNA
Yes, a nice feature that even early “smart” TVs had. It could have stopped at that and everyone would have been happy.
But today’s smart TV’s loaded with ads; unnecessary bloat; “shortcuts” to services you have no intention of ever using; massive user tracking; and complicated firmware/software that can render your TV useless, have become the real problems. It’s the enshittification of hardware that really was just fine being “dumb”.
I remember watching a recent program (one of those investigative consumer news shows), and I remember the LG problem you mentioned. A ton of people had an issue with that compressor, and LG just kept selling the damn things. Knock on wood, our LG washer and drier, and TV have been very reliable.
I’d get a much better experience with a small PC hooked up to it instead
That’s what I do these days. Combined with media I have on my NAS, I don’t need other “apps” or garbage nonsense on my TV. If only they made 60" computer monitors. LOL
I generally prefer simpler devices, and it was difficult buying a fridge with decent longevity (i.e. limited smart crap, ice maker in the freezer instead of fridge, etc). That’s becoming more and more difficult, and large appliances have shorter and shorter lifespans (I had my compressor die twice in <10 years in my LG fridge… fridges used to last 15+ years).
I should say that my current fridge is 27 years old and has NEVER had a problem (other than over-stuffed crisper drawers being broken).
I was reading that the average life for a fridge is 10-15 years, and I can’t honestly believe they are being made so poorly these days. They are such simple appliances, and I dread the day when I have to replace this one for a modern version.
But I’d love for my next TV to be a dumb TV. All the features my LG tv has just gets in the way of using it. LOL
Fair point re: software. Part of manufacturing products that don’t need to be thrown away would entail longer software support, naturally.
But realistically, software was never an issue 15+ years ago, when your toaster and microwave weren’t connected to the internet and your fridge didn’t have a large tablet interface.
I think we would all do better by having a few more “dumb, but immortal” products in our lives.
E-waste will continue to be a problem until companies are forced to make products that are designed to be repaired and upgraded without replacing them.
We have certification for safety and compliance, why not one that guarantees that an electronic product can be fully repaired by the end user using readily available (and affordable!) parts? It can be on a scale from 1 to 10, and the less repairable the item, the more restricted its distribution should be.
Every laptop should be made like a Framework laptop; every phone like a Fairphone. Every electronic product should certified to have long life.
Man, Dayz.
I played it all the time for years after they made it available on standalone. Probably my most played game ever.
95% of the time, it’s a walking/running simulator. But the other 5% was so memorable. Granted, many of the bugs and issues it had in the beginning made it hard to forget, but I also experienced some wonderful, memorable gameplay!
Long live DayZ! 😄
When should I sell my unused Series X? Because I feel like I’d make a profit if retail prices keep increasing 😂