Artificial Intelligence and Human Pain - Observatory - Institute for the Future of Education

Two and a half years ago, a 14-year-old American boy took his life after a last conversation with the “woman” he was in love with, a fictional character created with artificial intelligence (AI), with whom he had a longstanding “relationship” through a popular chatbot. Months later, the boy’s mother filed a lawsuit against the company that had created the platform. 

I won’t go into both sides’ legal arguments here. Some reflect the anger and pain of a mother who has lost her child, and the other, the cold response of a company whose business, in part, consists of defending itself against accusations like this. I don’t know what will happen during the trial, which looks like it’s scheduled for November of this year. I imagine that much of civil society, frightened by the extreme scope of AI, will side with the mother and push to prove her right. On the other hand, I think that the company may try to turn the trial into a kind of accusation against the woman and her ex-husband, the boy’s father, for neglecting the boy. We’ll see.

When I heard the story, my first impulse was a furious judgment: that the company is to blame for making available to young people characters with whom they can have “relationships” of all kinds (“friendly,” “loving,” “cybersexual”…) without the proper warnings, age filters, and the necessary reactions of assistance and help. Then I immediately started blaming the parents, saying they should take care of their children, monitor the content they browse, and restrict their screen time.