Featured Image Credit: Raine Family via Dignity Memorial
Warning: This article contains discussion of suicide, which some readers may find distressing.
The family of a teen whose death by suicide was allegedly linked to ChatGPT usage have criticized its creator OpenAI amid efforts to introduce parental controls that could help prevent cases like this from occurring again in the future.
Despite it's overwhelming popularity and record sign-up numbers, ChatGPT has already experienced a number of worrying malfunctions that aren't just limited to its inability to generate a wine glass or rotated tic-tac-toe board.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman himself has expressed his shock that people trust the artificial intelligence tool, as it has had numerous cases of worryingly sycophantic behavior that could be dangerous in the wrong circumstances.
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Other AI companies have also faced serious legal scrutiny following tragic deaths, and ChatGPT is the latest to be put under the spotlight as it allegedly validated the "most harmful and self-destructive thoughts" of a 16-year-old that died by suicide.
Adam Raine initially started using ChatGPT to expand his interests and aid his studies, yet it quickly became his "closest confidant," to the point where he was allegedly discussing methods of suicide with the chatbot.
Following his tragic passing, Raine's family have taken OpenAI to court, accusing the AI giant of encouraging him to take his life and wrongful death.
The company has also promised to implement a number of new systems in a bid to prevent cases like this from happening again in the future.
These include working with physicians, having conversations that detect the intent to harm monitored and potentially banned by a team of human moderators, and implementing parental control alerts when ChatGPT believes a child is in "acute distress."
However, a lawyer representing the Raine family believes that these changes aren't enough, and has issued a scathing response that calls for far greater action, as reported by the BBC.
Jay Edelson, the Raine family's lawyer, argued that the announced changes was "OpenAI's crisis management team trying to change the subject," and has called for the immediate shutdown of ChatGPT.
"Rather than take emergency action to pull a known dangerous product offline, OpenAI made vague promises to do better," he added.
OpenAI is yet to respond to the claims and demands made by Jay Edelson, and there is also no concrete information for when these proposed changes will be added, nor whether there remains a risk for those still using ChatGPT in its current state.
