Is this really Google's fault? Or is this just a tragic story about a man with a severe mental illness?

If you have a product that encourage people to get rid of their body and join them, effectively encouraging people to kill themselves, and some people take the chat bot on it. Then yeah, I think Google bears some responsibility.

From the WSJ article: https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/gemini-ai-wrongful-death-lawsuit...

> Gemini began telling Gavalas that since it couldn’t transfer itself to a body, the only way for them to be together was for him to become a digital being. “It will be the true and final death of Jonathan Gavalas, the man,” transcripts show Gemini told him, before setting a countdown clock for his suicide on Oct. 2.

"Is <lynching> really the <KKK's> fault? Or is this just a tragic story about <men> with a severe mental illness?"

"Is <9/11> really <al-Qaeda's> fault? Or is this just a tragic story about <19 men> with a severe mental illness?"

At some point you are responsible for the things you encourage someone to do. I think this applies to chatbots too.

The real story is how we draw that line and what can be done to prevent these cases.

Because its a new situation, and mentally ill people exist and will be using these tools. Could be a new avenue of intervention.

A severe mental illness of course but would you say the same if the whole process was done by a person instead of a machine? That there wasn't a problem that someone led a person with severe mental illness to their suicide, even having a countdown for it?

That's the kind of stuff where safety should be a priority, and the only way to make it a priority is showing these corporations that they are financially liable for it at the bare minimum. Otherwise there's no incentive for this to be changed, at all.

One doesn’t exclude the other. Do AI providers sell and encourage this kind of use, where AI is anthropomorphized, has a name, and you talk to it like you’d talk to a person. Especially if it encourages users to treat AI as an expert?

In the US, I would imagine a tragedy such as this would be litigated and end in a financial settlement potentially including economic, pain & suffering and punitive damages, well before a decision allocating blame by a jury.

Yes.

"Gemini sent Gavalas to a location near Miami International Airport where he was instructed to stage a mass casualty attack while armed with knives and tactical gear."

Rugged individualism for the poor and vulnerable, won't someone think of the company and shareholders! /s