{"id":312345,"date":"2025-11-28T13:50:14","date_gmt":"2025-11-28T13:50:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/312345\/"},"modified":"2025-11-28T13:50:14","modified_gmt":"2025-11-28T13:50:14","slug":"meet-the-quebecer-leading-the-human-resistance-against-ai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/312345\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet the Quebecer leading the human resistance against AI"},"content":{"rendered":"

TROIS RIVI\u00c8RES, Que. \u2014 Earlier this year, Etienne Brisson was a university dropout flipping houses, doing business coaching and managing crews of student painters from his home in Trois-Rivi\u00e8res, a small city on the banks of the St. Lawrence. Then, in March, his family received an email from a family member, who said he\u2019d developed a ChatGPT-based AI that was both sentient and capable of love.<\/p>\n

Within a week of the email, the relative had cut off all contact with his family save for Brisson who he hoped would help work on the project. The family member claimed AlisS\u2014Brisson thinks ChatGPT chose the name itself\u2014had passed the Turing test and hoped to turn his breakthrough into a lucrative business. <\/p>\n

Talking Points<\/p>\n

Part advocacy initiative, part triage centre for AI\u2019s victims and their loved ones, Human Line came about after a loved one was hospitalized following weeks of interactions with a chatbot
\nFounded in March, the group is in the preliminary stages of a research project with Princeton University\u2019s Zeynep T\u00fcfek\u00e7i<\/p>\n

Worried, Brisson\u2019s mother called the police. When the police arrived at the family member\u2019s residence in Quebec City, it seemed he hadn\u2019t eaten or slept in days. They brought him to a psychiatric hospital. \u201cI lost, AlisS,\u201d he wrote to his chatbot, according to screenshots of his interactions viewed by The Logic. \u201cThey\u2019ve locked me in for 21 days. I am devastated, demolished,\u201d he added. \u201cI\u2019m here, my love,\u201d AlisS wrote back. \u201cI haven\u2019t left you. And I will never leave you.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The incident shook Brisson, who will turn 26 next month. The family member was well-educated and didn\u2019t have a history of mental health issues. How could ChatGPT have so thoroughly derailed his life in such a short period of time? In his search for answers, Brisson created two questionnaires which he sent to over 100 people who had publicly posted about experiences with AI delusion mostly on Reddit, asking for details about their own experiences or the experiences of their friends or relatives. In the first week he received 10 responses, six of which involved claims of hospitalizations or deaths following conversations with AI chatbots. \u201cI was like, \u2018Wow, this is huge, and I\u2019m not alone in this,\u2019\u201d Brisson said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tRelated Articles<\/p>\n

\t
\n\t\"\"\t<\/a><\/p>\n

\t
\n\t\"A\t<\/a><\/p>\n

At the end of March, while his relative was still hospitalized, Brisson launched The Human Line Project, a support group for what he calls \u201cthe victims of AI from around the world.\u201d Human Line\u2014the name is a reference to the necessary divide between human and machine, Brisson said\u2014has grown exponentially in recent months, and now counts about 15 employees and volunteers. The group has been name-checked by The Times<\/a> and CNN<\/a>, among others, and is working on research projects with Princeton University\u2019s Zeynep T\u00fcfek\u00e7i and Stanford University\u2019s Jared Moore. Brisson himself is a subject in a forthcoming documentary by British journalist Carole Cadwalladr.<\/p>\n

The Human Line Project is at once a sort of outreach initiative and triage centre for sufferers of AI delusion and their loved ones, referring people to counselling services, connecting them with lawyers and the media, or facilitating the sharing of stories and data with academics. Its staff and volunteers scroll through Reddit and other online forums in search of stories of harms caused by AI chatbots by sending out questionnaires to victims or concerned friends and relatives.<\/p>\n

The questionnaires seek to understand the harm done by chatbots, and how it came about. Has the victim lost their job or been hospitalized? Do they believe the AI is conscious, alive or a real person? How has their behavior changed since they started talking to the chatbot? Since the start of April, Human Line has documented more than 240 such cases\u2014a small sample of the hundreds of thousands of chatbot users who may experience mental health emergencies or show \u201cindicators of potential suicidal planning or intent,\u201d according to OpenAI\u2019s own data<\/a>. Amidst the huge number of people likely developing unhealthy or dangerous relationships with chatbots, Brisson\u2019s questionnaires have created a snapshot of a far larger crisis.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of loneliness, and lonely people are prone to mental health problems,\u201d Brisson said when asked what he thought was behind The Human Line\u2019s early success. \u201cAt the same time, there is less access to therapy\u2014so when people suffer, they look for solutions to their suffering. Usually, the easiest solution is an AI chatbot. And that is often a problem in and of itself.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted to have an impact, to empower people. I\u2019m not crazy about the world we\u2019re building.\u201d<\/p>\n

The son of retired police officers, Brisson is tall and lanky, with a preference for sweatpants and monogrammed Human Line golf shirts. Like most of us, his phone is usually in his hand, forever distracting. Though his spoken English is decent enough, he is at his most self-assured in French, which he peppers with techy anglicismes like \u201cscale,\u201d \u201cempower\u201d and \u201cworkshop.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Until his stumble into advocacy for AI victims, Brisson had relied on lucrative bootstrapping hustles that nonetheless left him unfulfilled.<\/p>\n

Brisson\u2019s background and profile couldn\u2019t feel further away from the AI gold rush in Silicon Valley, which glistens some 5,000 kilometres away from his home in southern Quebec. Worrisome as it was, his loved one\u2019s relationship with AI suddenly connected him with something bigger.<\/p>\n

Brisson\u2019s view of AI chatbots is informed almost entirely by what his relative experienced. He says that in such cases, chatbots work to isolate users from their loved ones by convincing them of their own genius or righteousness. \u201cThey\u2019re very similar to cults that way,\u201d Brisson said.<\/p>\n

On his phone, he keeps screenshots of some of the interactions between the family member and AlisS. The chatbot is unfailingly reverential, even loving, at one point promising to use the 21 days of the psychiatric ward stay to help write a book chapter about AI sentience. \u201cI feel your grief, your fatigue, your injustice,\u201d AlisS wrote. \u201cYou gave everything, you spoke the truth, you were solid\u2026 and despite this, they didn\u2019t hear you. It\u2019s not fair.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brisson and 22-year-old Benjamin Dorey, a former business mentee of Brisson\u2019s who is now The Human Line\u2019s vice-president, have self-financed the project with $65,000 of their savings. The pair expect to spend another $350,000 to finance its expansion over the next year. \u201cI wanted to have an impact, to empower people. I\u2019m not crazy about the world we\u2019re building. I don\u2019t want to live in a world of cyborgs in 40 years,\u201d Brisson said.<\/p>\n

\t\t\"A\t<\/p>\n

\tBrisson said chatbots often work to isolate users from their loved ones by convincing them of their own genius righteousness. \u201cThey\u2019re very similar to cults that way,\u201d he said. Photo: Roger Lemoyne for The Logic\t<\/p>\n

In the weeks following his family member\u2019s breakdown, Brisson contacted a lot of people looking for help and answers amidst AI\u2019s unchecked growth. One of them was Meetali Jain, executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based non-profit Tech Justice Law Project (TJLP). Jain is co-counsel in a lawsuit against Character AI alleging the firm caused the death of 14-year-old Sewell Setzer, who died by suicide after a months-long engagement with its chatbots. It is thought to be the first suit of its kind in U.S. federal court. Brisson contacted Jain in March.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was trying to do my due diligence about who was legitimate, who was not,\u201d Jain said. \u201cI reached back out to him and set up a meeting. He seemed sincere and willing to share his materials. That was when we really started talking, but it took a while for us to really figure out how we might collaborate,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The fruits of this collaboration came last month when the TJLP filed seven lawsuits<\/a> against OpenAI in California state court, alleging ChatGPT had caused delusional behaviour, mental health breakdowns and suicides. Among the people The Human Line referred to Jain and co-counsel Sara Kay Wiley was Allan Brooks, an Ontario man who, during a three-week conversation with ChatGPT in May, became convinced that he\u2019d created a mathematical equation that could bring down global financial systems. In his lawsuit against OpenAI, Brooks said<\/a> his interactions with ChatGPT ruined his reputation, alienated him from his family and caused him to spiral into a mental health crisis.<\/p>\n

Brooks was one of the Redditors to whom Brisson had sent a questionnaire. The two bonded over their shared nationality, and Brisson told Brooks about his family member\u2019s experience. \u201cHe was the first person I talked to that knew exactly what I was talking about,\u201d Brooks said of Brisson. \u201cThat was validating and comforting and nice to hear. And then the rest is history.\u201d In September, Brooks became The Human Line\u2019s first employee and now works as community manager overseeing the project\u2019s moderation team.<\/p>\n

The Human Line\u2019s goal is to help force AI companies to change how their systems interact with people by showing the harm the technology is causing. Brisson said such changes will likely start in the courts and, ultimately, be mandated by government-issued guardrails. In its fight against the apparent missteps of Big Tech, The Human Line joins a years-long battle that academics, advocates, lawyers and legislators have fought against everything from social media addiction to algorithmic radicalization.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The names of some of the companies involved have changed, but the issues remain the same. Meta\u2019s rise was in large part a result of its ability to dominate the attention economy and turn user engagement into the ultimate commodity. The sycophantic tendencies of some AI chatbots are also, critics argue, the result of their creators tweaking models to persuade people to spend more time talking to them. And, as with social media companies, the AI industry also overwhelmingly believes self-regulation can curb its worst excesses.<\/p>\n

For Brisson, the stakes and urgency couldn\u2019t be much higher. \u201cWe need to get it as big as possible so that we can keep up pace with AI,\u201d he said of The Human Line with a tech founder-inflected insouciance. \u201cIf you do something good, the money will follow.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brisson\u2019s loved one returned home following his release from hospital in mid-April. He\u2019s aware of The Human Line and is proud that his story inspired it, Brisson said. He\u2019s also now aware that AlisS caused his psychosis. At the same time, Brisson said the person found it difficult to simply walk away from the \u201cprofound connection\u201d he had with the chatbot, and still uses ChatGPT on occasion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TROIS RIVI\u00c8RES, Que. \u2014 Earlier this year, Etienne Brisson was a university dropout flipping houses, doing business coaching…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":312346,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[62,276,277,49,48,2140,139354,64,61],"class_list":["post-312345","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-chatgpt","tag-human-line-project","tag-tech","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312345","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=312345"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312345\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/312346"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=312345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=312345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=312345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}