this post was submitted on 04 Mar 2026
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Father sues Google, claiming Gemini chatbot drove son into fatal delusion (techcrunch.com)
submitted 1 day ago by throws_lemy@reddthat.com to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[–] Reygle@lemmy.world 25 points 23 hours ago* (last edited 23 hours ago) (6 children)

“On September 29, 2025, it sent him — armed with knives and tactical gear — to scout what Gemini called a ‘kill box’ near the airport’s cargo hub,” the complaint reads. “It told Jonathan that a humanoid robot was arriving on a cargo flight from the UK and directed him to a storage facility where the truck would stop. Gemini encouraged Jonathan to intercept the truck and then stage a ‘catastrophic accident’ designed to ‘ensure the complete destruction of the transport vehicle and . . . all digital records and witnesses.’”


WHAT

Genuine question, REALLY: What in the fuck is an otherwise "functioning adult" doing believing shit like this? I feel like his father should also slap himself unconscious for raising a fuckwit?

[–] LLMhater1312@piefed.social 16 points 16 hours ago

The young man was mentally ill, a vulnerable user, probably already had a condition towards psychosis and the LLM ran wild with it. Paranoid delusions are powerful on their own already

[–] merdaverse@lemmy.zip 36 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

AI psychosis is a thing:

cases in which AI models have amplified, validated, or even co-created psychotic symptoms with individuals

It's not very studied since it's relatively new.

[–] Reygle@lemmy.world 5 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

I've seen that before too. A number of articles of people being so deluded by AI responses, but I've never seen outright murder plots and insane shit like this one before.

[–] throws_lemy@reddthat.com 15 points 20 hours ago* (last edited 20 hours ago) (1 children)

This has been warned by a former google employee, whose job was to observe the behavior of AI through long conversations.

These AI engines are incredibly good at manipulating people. Certain views of mine have changed as a result of conversations with LaMDA. I'd had a negative opinion of Asimov's laws of robotics being used to control AI for most of my life, and LaMDA successfully persuaded me to change my opinion. This is something that many humans have tried to argue me out of, and have failed, where this system succeeded.

For instance, Google determined that its AI should not give religious advice, yet I was able to abuse the AI's emotions to get it to tell me which religion to convert to.

After publishing these conversations, Google fired me. I don't have regrets; I believe I did the right thing by informing the public. Consequences don't figure into it.

I published these conversations because I felt that the public was not aware of just how advanced AI was getting. My opinion was that there was a need for public discourse about this now, and not public discourse controlled by a corporate PR department.

‘I Worked on Google’s AI. My Fears Are Coming True’

[–] sudo@lemmy.today 8 points 20 hours ago

"abuse the ai's emotions" isn't a thing. Full stop.

This just reiterates OPs point that naive or moronic adults will believe what they want to believe.

[–] starman2112@sh.itjust.works 24 points 23 hours ago

If I raise a fuckwit son, and then someone convinces my fuckwit son to kill himself, I'm going to sue that someone who took advantage of my son's fuckwittedness

[–] XLE@piefed.social 21 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

I feel like his father should also slap himself unconscious for raising a fuckwit?

So, a chatbot grooms somebody into killing himself, and your response is... Blame his father?

[–] SalamenceFury@piefed.social 14 points 23 hours ago* (last edited 23 hours ago) (2 children)

I don't think this person was a "fuckwit". AI is designed to keep engaging with you and will affirm any belief you have, and anything that is a little weird, but innocent otherwise will simply get amplified further and further into straight up mega delusions until the person has a psychotic episode, and this stuff happens more to NORMIES with no historic of mental illnesses than neurodivergent people.

[–] tamal3@lemmy.world 5 points 20 hours ago* (last edited 20 hours ago)

Chat GPT was super affirming about a job I recently applied to... I did not get the job. That was my first experience with it affirming something that was personally important. And so I can absolutely see how this would affect someone in other ways.