Killed by AI? Belgian man commits suicide after talking with chatbot

A Belgian man committed suicide after conversing with an artificial intelligence chatbot about climate change, as per reports.

The AI chatbot is believed to have encouraged the man to give up his life for saving the planet.

“Without Eliza (the chatbot), he would still be here,” the wife of the deceased said while speaking to the Belgian outlet La Libre.

Six weeks before the man's death, the father of two was allegedly holding intensive conversations with the chatbot on an application called Chai.

The bots of the app are based on a system which has been developed by the non-profit research lab EleutherAI as an “open-source alternative” to language models which have been released by OpenAI and are being incorporated by companies in different sectors, from healthcare to academia.

The chatbot, which is currently under fire, had received training from Chai Research co-founders Thomas Rianlan and William Beauchamp, reported Vice, adding that the Chai app has till now garnered five million users.

“The second we heard about this (suicide), we worked around the clock to get this feature implemented,” said Beauchamp, while speaking to Vice.

“So now, when anyone discusses something that could be not safe, we’re gonna be serving a helpful text underneath it in the exact same way that Twitter or Instagram doon their platforms,” he further stated.

As per the widow, the man had become “extremely pessimistic about the effects of global warming” and was seeking solace by confiding in the AI.

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“When he spoke to me about it, it was to tell me that he no longer saw any human solution to global warming. He placed all his hopes in technology and artificial intelligence to get out of it. He was so isolated in his eco-anxiety and in search of a way out that he saw this chatbot as a breath of fresh air,” she added.

“Eliza answered all his questions. She had become his confidante. Like a drug in which he took refuge, morning and evening, and which he could no longer do without,” the wife said.

(With inputs from agencies)

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