Comment on Teen killed himself after ‘months of encouragement from ChatGPT’, lawsuit claims
Occhioverde@feddit.it 4 weeks ago
I think we all agree on the fact that OpenAI isn’t exactly the most ethical corporation in this world (to use a gentle euphemism), but you can’t blame a machine for doing something that it doesn’t even undestand.
Sure, you can call for the creation of more “guardrails”, but they will always fall short: until LLMs will actually understand you, what you’re asking them and the whole context around it, there will always be a way to claim that you are just playing, doing worldbuilding or whatever, just as this kid did.
What I find really unsettling from both this discussion and the one around the whole age verification thing, is that people are calling for techinical solutions to social problems, an approach that always failed miserably; what we should call for is for parents to actually talk to their children, consider their emotions and problems (however insignificant they might appear to a grown-up) in order to, you know, at least be able to tell if your kid is contemplating suicide.
but you can’t blame a machine for doing something that it doesn’t even understand.
But you can blame the creators and operators of that machine for operating unethically.
If I build and sell a coffee maker that sometimes malfunctions and kills people, I’ll be sued into oblivion, and my coffee maker will be removed from the market. You don’t blame the coffee maker, but you absolutely hold the creator accountable.
Yes and no. The example you made is of a defective device, not of an “unethical” one.
For LLMs we know damn well that they shouldn’t be used as a therapist or as a digital friend to ask for advice; they are no more than a powerful search engine.
An example that is more in line with the situation we’re analyzing is a kid that stabs itself with a knife after his parents left him playing with one; are you sure you want to sue the company that made the knife in that scenario?
Not really, though.
The parents know the knife can be used to stab people. It’s a dangerous implement, and people are killed with knives all the time.
LLMs aren’t sold as weapons, or even as tools that can be used as weapons. They’re sold as totally benign tools that can’t reasonably be considered as dangerous.
That’s the difference. If you’re paying especially close attention to, you may potentially understand they can be dangerously, but most people are just buying a coffee maker.
pelespirit@sh.itjust.works 4 weeks ago
These are not the same thing.
Matthew@midwest.social 4 weeks ago
Isn’t that probably why they differentiated them in the sentence you quoted?
Occhioverde@feddit.it 4 weeks ago
Arguably, they are exactly the same thing, i.e. parents that are asking other people (namely, OpenAI in this case and adult sites operators in the other) to do their work of supervising their children because they are at best unable and at worst unwilling to do so themselves.