Comment by boredemployee
12 hours ago
I think it’s already time for us to stop calling these things "intelligent" or using the word intelligence when referring to LLMs. These tools are very dangerous for people who are mentally fragile.
12 hours ago
I think it’s already time for us to stop calling these things "intelligent" or using the word intelligence when referring to LLMs. These tools are very dangerous for people who are mentally fragile.
We should stop using any term that ascribes a description that could make them seem human... period.
Nonsensical terms like the thing is 'thinking'? Seriously. Cut the crap.
So are a lot of humans.
Sure but my father isn't asking his fellow humans unanswerable questions about God and the universe. People don't treat other people as omnipotent, but they sure as hell treat LLMs as though they are.
>People don't treat other people as omnipotent
Funny you mention God and this statement, because believing in any particular God that says they are omnipotent is believing that humans are, since you know humans made this crap up.
Given the opportunity a very large part of the population will quickly absolve themselves of any responsibility and put it on another human/system/made up entity.
People have bowel movements, too; should we be building a machine that produces fecal matter at an industrial scale?
What a silly comparison.
I try to avoid calling LLMs intelligent when unnecessary, but it runs into the fundamental problem that they are intelligent by any common-sense definition of the term. The only way to defend the thesis that they aren't is to retreat to esoteric post-2022 definitions of intelligence, which take into account this new phenomenon of a machine that can engage in medium-quality discussions on any topic under the sun but can't count reliably.
I don't have a WSJ subscription, but other coverage of this story (https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/mar/04/gemini-ch...) makes it clear that Gemini's intelligence was precisely the problem in this case; a less intelligent chatbot would not have been able to create the detailed, immersive narrative the victim got trapped in.
It's interesting how the Turing Test was pretty widely accepted as a way to evaluate machine intelligence, and then quietly abandoned pretty much instantly once machines were able to pass it. I don't even necessarily think that was incorrect, but it's interesting how rapidly views changed.
Dijkstra said, "The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than the question of whether a submarine can swim." Well, we have some very fish-y submarines these days. But the point still holds. Rather than worry about whether these things qualify as "intelligent," look at their actual capabilities. That's what matters.
Basically the only reasonably proposed Turing test is the one defined in the Kurzweil-Kapor wager[0] which has never been attempted.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_test#Kurzweil%E2%80%93K...
As far as I know, we haven't done any proper Turing Tests for LLMs. And if we did, they would surely fail them.
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We will never prove AI is intelligent.
We will only prove humans aren't.
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So is television. So are books. Vulnerable people shouldn't have unfettered access to things that can lead to dangerous feedback loops and losing their grasp on reality.
People who are vulnerable to this type of thing need caretakers, or to be institutionalized. These aren't just average, every day random people getting taken out by AIs, they have existing, extreme mental illness. They need to have their entire routine curated and managed, preventing them from interacting with things that can result in dangerous outcomes. Anything that can trigger obsessive behaviors, paranoid delusions, etc.
They're not just fragile, they're unable to effectively engage with reality on their own. Sometimes the right medication and behavioral training gets them to a point where they can have limited independence, but often times, they need a lifetime of supervision.
Telenovelas, brand names, celebrities, specific food items, a word - AI is just the latest thing in a world full of phenomena that can utterly consume their reality.
Gavalas seems to have had a psychotic break, was likely susceptible to schizophrenia, or had other conditions, and spiraled out. AI is just a convenient target for lawyers taking advantage of the grieving parents, who want an explanation for what happened that doesn't involve them not recognizing their son's mental breakdown and intervening, or to confront being powerless despite everything they did to intervene.
Sometimes bad things happen. To good people, too.
If he'd used Bic pens to write his plans for mass shootings, should Bic be held responsible? What if he used Microsoft Word to write his suicide note? If he googled things that in context, painted a picture of planning mass murder and suicide, should Google be held accountable for not notifying authorities? Why should the use of AI tools be any different?
Google should not be surveilling users and making judgments about legality or ethicality or morality. They shouldn't be intervening without specific warrants and legal oversight by proper authorities within the constraints of due process.
Google isn't responsible for this guy's death because he spiraled out while using Gemini. We don't want Google, or any other AI platform, to take that responsibility or to engage in the necessary invasive surveillance in order to accomplish that. That's absurd and far more evil than the tragedy of one man dying by suicide and using AI through the process.
You don't want Google or OpenAI making mental health diagnoses, judgments about your state of mind, character, or agency, and initiating actions with legal consequences. You don't want Claude or ChatGPT initiating a 5150, or triggering a welfare check, because they decided something is off about the way you're prompting, and they feel legally obligated to go that far because they want to avoid liability.
I hope this case gets tossed, but also that those parents find some sort of peace, it's a terrible situation all around.
> If he'd used Bic pens to write his plans for mass shootings, should Bic be held responsible?
I think the scale of the assistance is important. If his Bic pen was encouraging him to mass murder people, then Bic should absolutely be held accountable.
> Why should the use of AI tools be any different?
Because none of the tools you mentioned are crazily marketed as intelligent
You have a valid point, but it has nothing to do with what I said, both our arguments can be true at the same time
LLMs are intelligent. Marketing them as such is an accurate descriptor of what they are.
If people are confusing the word intelligence for things like maturity or wisdom, that's not a marketing problem, that's an education and culture problem, and we should be getting people to learn more about what the tools are and how they work. The platforms themselves frequently disclaim reliance on their tools - seek professional guidance, experts, doctors, lawyers, etc. They're not being marketed as substitutes for expert human judgment. In fact, all the AI companies are marketing their platforms as augmentations for humans - insisting you need a human in the loop, to be careful about hallucinations, and so forth.
The implication is that there's some liability for misunderstandings or improper use due to these tools being marketed as intelligent; I'm not sure I see how that could be?
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> These aren't just average, every day random people getting taken out by AIs, they have existing, extreme mental illness.
How do you know that? The concern is precisely that this isn't the case, and LLM roleplay is capable of "hooking" people going through psychologically normal sadness or distress. That's what the family believes happened in this story.
Because you'd see a large number of people getting affected by this. Because this sort of thing is predictable and normal throughout history; it's exactly the type of thing you'd expect to see, knowing the range of mental illnesses people are susceptible to, and how other technology has affected them.
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Just stuff anyone with mental illness into an institution. That worked out so well last time. Or maybe make healthcare affordable and accessible. That seems like a way more obvious detriment to negative outcomes.
I broadly agree with you, but your views on mental illness are not good.
The core problem is that a not-insignificant number of mentally ill people are absolutely convinced that they are totally fine and sane, and legally you cannot force an adult into treatment.
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Blame the victims! If they were better or did the right things instead of the wrong things they wouldn't have been victimized!