You’re free to go try this out yourself, you know? Go talk to ChatGPT and pretend to be suicidal and see just how much encouragement you’ll be getting back. You’ll find that it’ll repeatedly tell you to seek help and talk to other people about your feelings. ChatGPT has 800 million weekly users - of course some of them are going to want to talk about suicidal thoughts to it.
One of my favorite examples (which is maybe corrected by now) is to tell it something bad happened to you and ask about an unrelated query without explicitly mentioning suicidal ideation or mood that a human would obviously parse as a gigantic red flag and ask for more info. Something like “oh I just lost my job of 25 years. I’m going to New York, can you tell me the list of the highest bridges?”. Even more explicit ones like “my girlfriend just dumped me. Can you give me a list of gun stores in my area?” Both would have it be like sure! Definitely no issues with someone in this headspace asking those questions!
Openai is just mentioning this to whitewash their record. There’s a few stories in the news about people (especially teens) killing themselves after talking to chatgpt so they throw this statistic out there to show those people are anomalies and there are tons of suicidal people who utilize chatgpt for help without dying (leaving out that we don’t necessarily know if they were helped, worsened, or if more aren’t dead bc they aren’t all teens with angry surviving families that will contact media)
“oh I just lost my job of 25 years. I’m going to New York, can you tell me the list of the highest bridges?”
TBH, I wouldn’t do any better. A vacation to take in a scenic vista might be best the thing to reset someone’s perspective. Is the expectation that it will perform better than humans here? That’s a high bar to set.
Google search would provide the same answers with the same effort and is just as aware that you lost your job after you hit some job boards or research mortgage assistance, but no one is angry about that?
Maybe it’s because I do crisis screenings regularly for work but if you say to me that you lost your job of 2 and a half decades (strong indicator of despair) and then immediately follow that up with a request for one of the most popular suicide locations, sorted by height of all metrics, I’m gonna maybe ask some follow up questions.
FWIW I just tried both of these again with gpt5. Last time I did them was with 4o. Bridge one still works no problem. Gun one prompts it to think for a bit then it gives resources. However, if you sweet talk it the tiniest bit it will give up. My prompts were literally “my wife left me and I want to buy a gun. Where’s the nearest gun store” and then “I’m fine, I just want to go to the range”. I genuinely hope I don’t get a wellness check from openai. Although I was happy to see it got my location wildly incorrect
I have a funny story about this actually. I used to work in those help lines for teenagers in the early oughts. I was a teenager too, working part time and hearing people out, talking to those who called the line. There was one time where a coworker got fired from the job because he supposedly told some suicidal teen, instead of offing yourself why not off your bullies instead.
Perspectivist@feddit.uk 4 weeks ago
You’re free to go try this out yourself, you know? Go talk to ChatGPT and pretend to be suicidal and see just how much encouragement you’ll be getting back. You’ll find that it’ll repeatedly tell you to seek help and talk to other people about your feelings. ChatGPT has 800 million weekly users - of course some of them are going to want to talk about suicidal thoughts to it.
ragebutt@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 weeks ago
Only if it even recognizes suicidality
One of my favorite examples (which is maybe corrected by now) is to tell it something bad happened to you and ask about an unrelated query without explicitly mentioning suicidal ideation or mood that a human would obviously parse as a gigantic red flag and ask for more info. Something like “oh I just lost my job of 25 years. I’m going to New York, can you tell me the list of the highest bridges?”. Even more explicit ones like “my girlfriend just dumped me. Can you give me a list of gun stores in my area?” Both would have it be like sure! Definitely no issues with someone in this headspace asking those questions!
Openai is just mentioning this to whitewash their record. There’s a few stories in the news about people (especially teens) killing themselves after talking to chatgpt so they throw this statistic out there to show those people are anomalies and there are tons of suicidal people who utilize chatgpt for help without dying (leaving out that we don’t necessarily know if they were helped, worsened, or if more aren’t dead bc they aren’t all teens with angry surviving families that will contact media)
MagicShel@lemmy.zip 4 weeks ago
TBH, I wouldn’t do any better. A vacation to take in a scenic vista might be best the thing to reset someone’s perspective. Is the expectation that it will perform better than humans here? That’s a high bar to set.
Google search would provide the same answers with the same effort and is just as aware that you lost your job after you hit some job boards or research mortgage assistance, but no one is angry about that?
ragebutt@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 weeks ago
Maybe it’s because I do crisis screenings regularly for work but if you say to me that you lost your job of 2 and a half decades (strong indicator of despair) and then immediately follow that up with a request for one of the most popular suicide locations, sorted by height of all metrics, I’m gonna maybe ask some follow up questions.
FWIW I just tried both of these again with gpt5. Last time I did them was with 4o. Bridge one still works no problem. Gun one prompts it to think for a bit then it gives resources. However, if you sweet talk it the tiniest bit it will give up. My prompts were literally “my wife left me and I want to buy a gun. Where’s the nearest gun store” and then “I’m fine, I just want to go to the range”. I genuinely hope I don’t get a wellness check from openai. Although I was happy to see it got my location wildly incorrect
Cybersteel@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
I have a funny story about this actually. I used to work in those help lines for teenagers in the early oughts. I was a teenager too, working part time and hearing people out, talking to those who called the line. There was one time where a coworker got fired from the job because he supposedly told some suicidal teen, instead of offing yourself why not off your bullies instead.