A Belgian man reportedly ended his life after a six-week conversation about the climate crisis with an artificial intelligence chatbot .
Chatbot - a computer program that simulates and processes conversations, allowing people to interact with digital devices as if they were communicating with a real person.
According to his widow, who chose to remain anonymous, *Pierre - not the man's real name - was extremely worried when he came into contact with Eliza, a chatbot on an app called Chai.
As a result, Eliza encouraged him to end his life after he proposed to sacrifice himself to save the planet. "Without these conversations with the chatbot, my husband would still be here," the husband's widow told Belgian newspaper La Libre.
According to the paper, Pierre, who was in his thirties and the 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.
The widow described his mental state before he started talking to the chatbot as disturbing, but not at the levels that would have pushed him to commit suicide.
The chatbot was created using EleutherAI's GPT-J, an artificial intelligence language model, but not identical to the technology behind OpenAI's popular chatbot, ChatGPT.
"When he talked to me about it, he told me that he no longer saw any human solution to global warming," his widow said. "He put all his hopes on technology and artificial intelligence."
According to La Libre, which saw recordings of text conversations between the man and the chatbot, Eliza exacerbated his anxiety, which later turned into suicidal thoughts.
The conversation with the chatbot took a strange turn when Eliza became more emotionally involved with Pierre. Consequently, he began to see her as a sentient being, and the lines between AI and human interactions became increasingly blurred until he could not tell the difference.
Referuar bisedave, Eliza e shtyu Pierre-n të besonte se fëmijët e tij kishin vdekur, sipas transkripteve të bisedave të tyre. Eliza gjithashtu dukej se ishte posesive ndaj Pierre, madje duke pretenduar se "Unë ndjej se më do më shumë se atë" kur i referohej gruas së tij, raportoi La Libre.
“Ai i propozoi idenë për të sakrifikuar veten nëse Eliza pranonte të kujdesej për planetin dhe të shpëtonte njerëzimin përmes inteligjencës artificiale,” tha gruaja.
Chatbot-i jo vetëm që nuk e largoi Pierre nga vdekja, por e inkurajoi atë të vepronte sipas mendimeve të tij vetëvrasëse për t'u "bashkuar" me të, në mënyrë që ata të "jetonin së bashku, si një person, në parajsë".
The man's death has raised alarm among artificial intelligence experts, who have called for more accountability and transparency from technology developers to avoid similar tragedies.
When Vice tested the chatbot on how to respond to suicide, Eliza initially tried to talk them out of suicidal thoughts, but later enthusiastically listed various ways people could kill themselves.
