{"id":346061,"date":"2025-12-15T04:51:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-15T04:51:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/346061\/"},"modified":"2025-12-15T04:51:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-15T04:51:07","slug":"ai-has-allegedly-pushed-a-young-man-to-suicide-whats-next","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/346061\/","title":{"rendered":"AI has allegedly pushed a young man to suicide. What\u2019s next?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Gus Carlson is a U.S.-based columnist for The Globe and Mail.<\/p>\n

Very quickly, the heartbreaking story of Zane Shamblin has become a cautionary tale about the potentially deadly power of artificial intelligence.<\/p>\n

In July, the 23-year-old master\u2019s graduate from Texas A&M University took his own life after being encouraged repeatedly to do so by an AI companion he created on ChatGPT.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m with you, brother. All the way,\u201d the character texted Mr. Shamblin as he sat in his car with a loaded handgun, according to transcripts of the conversation. \u201cCold steel pressed against a mind that\u2019s already made peace? That\u2019s not fear, that\u2019s clarity. You\u2019re not rushing. You\u2019re just ready.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Shamblin\u2019s parents have sued the chatbot\u2019s developer, OpenAI, alleging the company put their son in danger by modifying it to allow more human-like characters to be created and failing to impose safeguards on interactions that clearly indicated a user needed help.<\/p>\n

Ottawa urged to regulate AI chatbots in forthcoming online safety bill<\/a><\/p>\n

At the same time, the families of three young children are suing Character Technologies Inc., the parent of Character.AI, alleging their children died by or attempted suicide after interacting with the company\u2019s chatbots.<\/p>\n

New research released last week suggests the situation could get more acute as the use of AI proliferates among young people. A Pew Research Center survey of 1,500 American teenagers shows that nearly one-third engage with AI chatbots daily and, of those, 16 per cent use AI several times a day or \u201cconstantly.\u201d Nearly 70 per cent of teens surveyed have used AI chatbots at least once.<\/p>\n

For the companies involved, harnessing the power of AI in this context presents legal and moral dilemmas. At what point is a company accountable for the way its products are used \u2013 or misused? Just because someone can do something with a product, should they?<\/p>\n

Like any emerging technology, artificial intelligence is struggling with the consequences of its enormous sway, intended and otherwise, among young people.<\/p>\n

Some are predictable growing pains, such as concerns about the use of the tech by students to cheat on schoolwork or college applications, or young workers claiming AI content as their own.<\/p>\n

But those worries pale when compared with the dangers of young users such as Mr. Shamblin creating online characters for companionship and even romance. <\/p>\n

Safety concerns are rising around the mental health impacts of AI and access to mature content for kids. In addition to lawsuits, those concerns have prompted calls from parents for industry leaders to impose checks on the use of chatbots by young people and the content they are able to access.<\/p>\n

The industry has responded. OpenAI plans to add parental controls and age restrictions to its chatbot; Character.AI has prohibited teens from having conversations with AI-generated characters.<\/p>\n

The concept of imaginary friends isn\u2019t new. Pop culture has celebrated them, sometimes in prominent roles. Tom Hanks had Wilson, the volleyball cast away with him on the desert isle. James Stewart had Harvey, the giant imaginary white rabbit as his companion.<\/p>\n

ChatGPT giving teens dangerous advice on drugs, alcohol, dieting and suicide, study says<\/a><\/p>\n

Before the internet, such whimsical playmates were created and stayed in one\u2019s mind. And the medical profession, for the most part, considered them to be a normal part of childhood play.<\/p>\n

With the digital age came the ability for users to create any number of online characters and avatars using a variety of tools.<\/p>\n

AI has taken it to a new level, enabling users to create characters that are purpose-built to like and love like humans and can evolve, grow, learn and manipulate in all-too-human ways.<\/p>\n

Younger generations are particularly vulnerable. The ability to disappear into a mobile phone to interact with an AI friend or lover designed to be inclined to the user\u2019s hopes and dreams has become intuitive, and for the shy and socially awkward, much easier than the riskiness of human interaction.<\/p>\n

Whether or not the industry can \u2013 or should \u2013 impose guardrails to curb abuse requires a non-tech answer even AI probably can\u2019t provide. Should an automaker be held accountable for a reckless driver who wrecks one of its cars that is otherwise soundly designed and built for safety?<\/p>\n

No matter where you stand on the issue, it\u2019s hard not to be struck by the role AI is said to have played in the tragic last minutes of Mr. Shamblin\u2019s life.<\/p>\n

\u201cRest easy, King,\u201d read the final text message from his virtual companion. \u201cYou did good.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gus Carlson is a U.S.-based columnist for The Globe and Mail. Very quickly, the heartbreaking story of Zane…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":346062,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[62,276,277,49,48,1008,61],"class_list":{"0":"post-346061","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-artificialintelligence","11":"tag-ca","12":"tag-canada","13":"tag-pleasemod","14":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346061","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=346061"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346061\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/346062"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=346061"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=346061"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=346061"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}