Comment by FuturisticLover

1 month ago

I am shocked after finding out about so many deaths linked to chatbots - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deaths_linked_to_chatbots

Why would you be shocked? People talk about these things like they’re some kind of oracle. It’s pretty obvious that an “oracle” which gives somewhat random answers is dangerous.

  • The fact that a technology being used by literally billions of people has a wikipedia page listing only 15 related deaths does not seem to suggest that the technology is dangerous.

    • 15 that we know of, so far. People outside the HN crowd just started using AI pretty recently. There’s also a case to be made that the increased pollution has a certain death toll as well. We know that fossil fuels, construction, manufacturing, and even noise all produce pollution that reduce the average lifespan in a given area. Some of these data centers are being run off gas turbines which are very dirty.

    • I remember seeing people make similar arguments in the early days of OxyContin’s takeover.

      The length of the Wikipedia article at this point isn’t good evidence of either side.