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A teen was suicidal. ChatGPT was the friend he confided in

(www.nytimes.com)
443 points jaredwiener | 2 comments | 26 Aug 25 14:15 UTC | HN request time: 0.616s | source
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TillE ◴[26 Aug 25 17:19 UTC] No.45029541[source]▶
I would've thought that explicit discussion of suicide is one of those topics that chatbots will absolutely refuse to engage with. Like as soon as people started talking about using LLMs as therapists, it's really easy to see how that can go wrong.
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1. TheCleric ◴[26 Aug 25 17:36 UTC] No.45029762[source]▶
Well everyone seemed to turn on the AI ethicists as cowards a few years ago, so I guess this is what happens.
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2. slg ◴[26 Aug 25 21:36 UTC] No.45032607[source]▶
People got so upset that LLMs wouldn’t say the n-word to prevent a hypothetical nuclear bomb from going off so we now have LLMs that actively encourage teenagers to kill themselves.