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Sad to see what happened to the kid, but to point the finger at a language model is just laughable. It shows a complete breakdown of society and the caregivers entrusted with responsibility.

	▲	GuinansEyebrows 6 days ago \| parent [-]
		people are (rightly) pointing the finger at OpenAI, the organization comprised of human beings, all of whom made decisions along the way to release a language model that encouraged a child to attempt and complete suicide.

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nbngeorcjhe 6 days ago | parent | prev [-]

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hackit2 6 days ago | parent [-]

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gabriel666smith 6 days ago | parent | next [-]

>You cannot be empathetic to complete strangers.

Why not? I’m not trying to inflame this further, I’m genuinely interested in your logic for this statement.

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hackit2 6 days ago | parent [-]

In high social cohesion there is social pressure to adhere to reciprocation, how-ever this start breaking down above a certain human group size. Empathy like all emotions require effort and cognitive load, and without things being mutual you will eventually slowly become drained, bitter and resentful because of empathy fatigue. To prevent emotional exhaustion and conserve energy, a person's empathy is like a sliding scale that is constantly adjusted based on the closeness of their relationship with others.

	▲	gabriel666smith 6 days ago \| parent [-]
		Thank you for your good-faith explanation. > Empathy like all emotions require effort and cognitive load, and without things being mutual you will eventually slowly become drained, bitter and resentful because of empathy fatigue. Do you have a source study or is this anecdotal, or speculative? Again, genuinely interested, as it’s a claim I see often, but haven’t been able to pin down. (While attempting not to virtue-signal) I personally find it easier to empathize with people I don’t know, often, which is why I’m interested. I don’t expect mutual empathy from someone who doesn’t know who I am. Equally, I try not to consume much news media, as the ‘drain’ I experience feels as though it comes from a place of empathy when I see sad things. So I think I experience a version of what you’re suggesting, and I’m interested in why our language is quite oppositional despite this.

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latexr 6 days ago | parent | prev [-]

> You cannot be empathetic to complete strangers.

Of course you can, and it’s genuinely worrying you so vehemently believe you can’t. That’s what support groups are—strangers in similar circumstances being empathetic to each other to get through a hurtful situation.

“I told you once that I was searching for the nature of evil. I think I’ve come close to defining it: a lack of empathy. It’s the one characteristic that connects all the defendants. A genuine incapacity to feel with their fellow man. Evil, I think, is the absence of empathy.” — Gustave Gilbert, author of “Nuremberg Diary”, an account of interviews conducted during the Nuremberg trials of high-ranking Nazi leaders.