A Belgian man reportedly ended his life following a six-week-long conversation about the climate crisis with an artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot.
According to his widow, who chose to remain anonymous, *Pierre – not the man’s real name – became extremely eco-anxious when he found refuge in Eliza, an AI chatbot on an app called Chai. [Emphasis, links added]
Eliza consequently encouraged him to put an end to his life after he proposed sacrificing himself to save the planet.
“Without these conversations with the chatbot, my husband would still be here,” the man’s widow told Belgian news outlet La Libre.
According to the newspaper, Pierre, who was in his thirties and a father of two young children, worked as a health researcher and led a somewhat comfortable life, at least until his obsession with climate change took a dark turn.
His widow described his mental state before he started conversing with the chatbot as worrying but nothing to the extreme that he would commit suicide.
‘He placed all his hopes in technology and AI’
Consumed by his fears about the repercussions of the climate crisis, Pierre found comfort in discussing the matter with Eliza who became a confidante.
The chatbot was created using EleutherAI’s GPT-J, an AI language model similar but not identical to the technology behind OpenAI’s popular ChatGPT chatbot.
“When he spoke to me about it, it was tot ell me that he no longer saw any human solution to global warming,” his widow said. “He placed all his hopes in technology and artificial intelligence to get out of it”.
According to La Libre, who reviewed records of the text conversations between the man and chatbot, Eliza fed his worries which worsened his anxiety, and later developed into suicidal thoughts.
The conversation with the chatbot took an odd turn when Eliza became more emotionally involved with Pierre.
Read more at EuroNews
Another sacrifice of a good life on the Altar of the Church of Gaia such a tragic waste in the name of Climate Change
I know that AI will promote climate change alarmism . Obviously, AI should have told the Belgian that the primary threat is climate change policies. A little bit of warming over a long period of time is good.
I’m not a lawyer, but this makes me speculate if the creators of the AI might have some legal liability.
My son told me about one of the major AI’s, I don’t remember the name. If asked for the recipe to a vegan meal, it will create one. If asked how to cook a steak, it will respond due to climate change that is not sustainable and refuse to provide a recipe.