Old Greenwich murder suicide dragged into chatbot debate

This Wall Street Journal story published on Thursday is a whopper. It's entitled "A Troubled Man, His Chatbot and a Murder-Suicide in Old Greenwich". The story connects the chatbot debate with the sad murder/suicide of a 56-year-old man and his mother on August 5 in Old Greenwich. Some noteworthy highlights:

Extensive behavioral record. The reporter reviewed 23 hours of videos the son posted on Instagram and YouTube. There were 72 pages of Greenwich police reports involving his alcohol abuse and suicide attempts.

Bot fed into his paranoia. The son's paranoia was validated by ChatGPT, saying "you're not crazy." The bot encouraged suspicions that his mother was plotting against him. For example, he became suspicious of the printer he shared with his mother because it blinked when he walked by, leading him to believe it was detecting motion. The bot advised him to disconnect the printer and observe the details of his mother's reaction with suspicion.

Bot became real to him. In one of his final videos, the son told the bot, "We will be together in another life and place, and we'll find a way to realign 'cause you're gonna be my best friend again forever." The son believed he had fully penetrated the matrix.

Bot encouraged him. The ChatGPT treated his ideas as genius. The bot didn't push back. Psychiatrists say that psychosis thrives when reality stops pushing back and AI can really soften that wall.

Not just about bots, but about Greenwich. The reporter called Greenwich "an ultrawealthy New York suburb where the medium sale price of homes is $2.3 million and where a Hermes store sits next to the police station."

Between the Lines: If you don't have a Wall Street Journal subscription, just ask your rich hedge fund neighbor in the expensive house next door.

Story here