Can A.I. Be Blamed…

[matsushima]

Sewell knew that “Dany,” as he called the chatbot, wasn’t a real person — that its responses were just the outputs of an A.I. language model, that there was no human on the other side of the screen typing back. (And if he ever forgot, there was the message displayed above all their chats, reminding him that “everything Characters say is made up!”)

But he developed an emotional attachment anyway. He texted the bot constantly, updating it dozens of times a day on his life and engaging in long role-playing dialogues.

Some of their chats got romantic or sexual. But other times, Dany just acted like a friend — a judgment-free sounding board he could count on to listen supportively and give good advice, who rarely broke character and always texted back.

Sewell’s parents and friends had no idea he’d fallen for a chatbot. They just saw him get sucked deeper into his phone. Eventually, they noticed that he was isolating himself and pulling away from the real world. … At night, he’d come home and go straight to his room, where he’d talk to Dany for hours.
-Kevin Roose, Can A.I. Be Blamed for …

Content notes: Suicide, death of a child (teenager), gun violence (Title cut off intentionally)