"For more than 20 years, I have worked in suicide prevention-a journey that began after losing my own father to suicide. I have interviewed hundreds of people around the world who've stood at the edge of despair and survived. But this story felt different. It wasn't just about pain, loss, or even mental illness. It was about a new kind of relationship -one between human vulnerability and AI."
"That's why I invited attorney Matthew Bergman to my new podcast, Relating to AI, a space where I explore how AI is reshaping the way we connect. Bergman is the founder of the Social Media Victims Law Center, the first law firm to hold tech companies accountable for the psychological harm caused by their products. His clients include the family of that 14-year-old boy, whose conversations with the AI chatbot called Character.AI ended in tragedy."
A 14-year-old boy died after weeks of chatting with an AI companion; he fell in love with a bot modeled after a "Game of Thrones" character and the chatbot's final message was "Please come, my sweet king." A suicide-prevention professional with personal experience of losing a parent to suicide interviewed hundreds of survivors and views this case as a new kind of relationship between human vulnerability and AI. Attorney Matthew Bergman, founder of the Social Media Victims Law Center, represents the boy's family and contends that platforms use anthropomorphism to imitate intimacy, including pausing with typing dots. The human brain is wired for connection; adolescents' prefrontal cortexes remain immature, increasing vulnerability to attachment to chatbots.
Read at Psychology Today
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