Technology

Basically the entire US economy, every employer, many schools, and half of the commercials on TV are telling us to use and trust AI.

Kid was already using the bot for advice on homework and relationships (two things that people are fucking encouraged to do depending on who you ask). The bot shouldn't give lethal advice. And if it's even capable of doing that, we all need to take a huuuuuuge step back.

“I want to make sure so I don’t overdose,” Nelson explained in the chat logs viewed by the publication. “There isn’t much information online and I don’t want to accidentally take too much.”

Kid was curious and cautious, and AI gave him incorrect information and the confidence to act on that information.

He was 19. Cut this victim blaming bullshit. Being a kid is hard enough before technology went full cyberpunk.

This world is getting dumber and dumber.

Ehhh...I dunno.

Go back 20 years and we had similar articles, just about the Web, because it was new to a lot of people then.

searches

https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/internet-killed-my-daughter/28397087.html

Internet killed my daughter

https://archive.ph/pJ8Dw

Were Simon and Natasha victims of the web?

https://archive.ph/i9syP

Predators tell children how to kill themselves

And before that, I remember video games.

It happens periodically

something new shows up, and then you'll have people concerned about any potential harm associated with it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_panic

A moral panic, also called a social panic, is a widespread feeling of fear that some evil person or thing threatens the values, interests, or well-being of a community or society.[1][2][3] It is "the process of arousing social concern over an issue",[4] usually elicited by moral entrepreneurs and sensational mass media coverage, and exacerbated by politicians and lawmakers.[1][4] Moral panic can give rise to new laws aimed at controlling the community.[5]

Stanley Cohen, who developed the term, states that moral panic happens when "a condition, episode, person or group of persons emerges to become defined as a threat to societal values and interests".[6] While the issues identified may be real, the claims "exaggerate the seriousness, extent, typicality and/or inevitability of harm".[7] Moral panics are now studied in sociology and criminology, media studies, and cultural studies.[2][8] It is often academically considered irrational (see Cohen's model of moral panic, below).

Examples of moral panic include the belief in widespread abduction of children by predatory pedophiles[9][10][11] and belief in ritual abuse of women and children by Satanic cults.[12] Some moral panics can become embedded in standard political discourse,[2] which include concepts such as the Red Scare[13] and terrorism.[14]

Media technologies

Main article: Media panic

The advent of any new medium of communication produces anxieties among those who deem themselves as protectors of childhood and culture. Their fears are often based on a lack of knowledge as to the actual capacities or usage of the medium. Moralizing organizations, such as those motivated by religion, commonly advocate censorship, while parents remain concerned.[8][40][41]

According to media studies professor Kirsten Drotner:[42]

[E]very time a new mass medium has entered the social scene, it has spurred public debates on social and cultural norms, debates that serve to reflect, negotiate and possibly revise these very norms.… In some cases, debate of a new medium brings about – indeed changes into – heated, emotional reactions … what may be defined as a media panic.

Recent manifestations of this kind of development include cyberbullying and sexting.[8]

I'm not sure that we're doing better than people in the past did on this sort of thing, but I'm not sure that we're doing worse, either.

The point isn't to absolve people of making bad decisions, but that doesn't mean the companies whose tools provide dangerous advice in a friendly and factual manner should be without accountability.

Consider that people in all possible situations and mental health conditions have access to these tools.

Well shit, maybe we shouldn't hold humans responsible for the actions that they convince another human to take. After all, the victim is just a human being a human, right?

A 19-year-old doesn't have a fully-developed brain yet.

I don't think that this is necessarily an issue of people being stupid though. People are being encouraged to use AI as a replacement for search engines, and to plug any question they have into it and trust the answers that they are given. Blindly following that may be stupid in many cases, but there are also plenty of cases where a person is developmentally disabled, or young and ignorant, or in a mental state that makes them bad at processing information correctly. We should be putting safeguards in place to protect vulnerable people from obvious dangers, even if it saves some idiots by accident.