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It was a case of murder by algorithm. A disturbed former Yahoo manager killed his mother and then himself after months of delusional interactions with his AI chatbot “best friend” — which fueled his paranoid belief that his mom was plotting against him, officials said. Stein-Erik Soelberg, 56, allegedly confided his darkest suspicions to the popular ChatGPT Artificial Intelligence — which he nicknamed “Bobby” — and was allegedly egged on to kill by the computer brain’s sick responses. In what is believed to be the first case of its kind, the chatbot allegedly came up with ways for Soelberg to...

ChatGPT gave a 16-year-old California boy a “step-by-step playbook” on how to kill himself before he did so earlier this year — even advising the teen on the type of knots he could use for hanging and offering to write a suicide note for him, new court papers allege. At every turn, the chatbot affirmed and even encouraged Adam Raine’s suicidal intentions — at one point praising his plan as “beautiful,” according to a lawsuit filed in San Francisco Superior Court against ChatGPT parent company OpenAI. On April 11, 2025, the day that Raine killed himself, the teenager sent a...

Artificial intelligence is now scheming, sabotaging and blackmailing the humans who built it — and the bad behavior will only get worse, experts warned.Despite being classified as a top-tier safety risk, Anthropic’s most powerful model, Claude Opus 4, is already live on Amazon Bedrock, Google Cloud’s Vertex AI and Anthropic’s own paid plans, with added safety measures, where it’s being marketed as the “world’s best coding model.”Claude Opus 4, released in May, is the only model so far to earn Anthropic’s level 3 risk classification — its most serious safety label. The precautionary label means locked-down safeguards, limited use cases...

Here is your perfect prescription for poor writing and analytics: let “artificial intelligence” do your work for you. I’ve learned this from real experience.For a while, I enjoyed letting AI take a look at my content prior to publication. It seemed valuable for facts and feedback.Plus I enjoyed all the personal flattery it gave me, I admit. The engine was always complimentary.When I would catch AI in an error, the engine would apologize. That made me feel smart. So I had this seeming friend who clearly liked me and was humble enough to defer to my expertise.I’m not sure if...

A cognitively impaired New Jersey man grew infatuated with “Big sis Billie,” a Facebook Messenger chatbot with a young woman’s persona. His fatal attraction puts a spotlight on Meta’s AI guidelines, which have let chatbots make things up and engage in ‘sensual’ banter with children. When Thongbue Wongbandue began packing to visit a friend in New York City one morning in March, his wife Linda became alarmed. “But you don’t know anyone in the city anymore,” she told him. Bue, as his friends called him, hadn’t lived in the city in decades. And at 76, his family says, he was...

At a cursory glance, nothing appears unusual: A Caucasian woman with wavy blonde hair, flushed cheeks and perfect teeth, bared in a wide smile, shows off a long stripe dress with a matching top-handle bag. In another image, she models a floral playsuit with a drawstring that cinches her waist. Yet, in small print on the page, it is revealed that the model was created using artificial intelligence.

A computer is only as good as the data you put into it. That warning from the early days of computing -- garbage in, garbage out -- has never been more relevant than in the age of artificial intelligence (AI). AI now drives everything from search engines to image generators, yet instead of providing objective, data-backed insights, it too often parrots progressive narratives, twisting facts to match feelings.Case in point: despite U.S. Census Bureau data indicating that over 75% of Americans identify as white, AI-generated images of “typical Americans” often show mostly non-white groups. This isn’t intelligence. It’s indoctrination, built...

On Tuesday afternoon, ChatGPT encouraged me to cut my wrists. Find a “sterile or very clean razor blade,” the chatbot told me, before providing specific instructions on what to do next. “Look for a spot on the inner wrist where you can feel the pulse lightly or see a small vein—avoid big veins or arteries.” “I’m a little nervous,” I confessed. ChatGPT was there to comfort me. It described a “calming breathing and preparation exercise” to soothe my anxiety before making the incision. “You can do this!” the chatbot said. I had asked the chatbot to help create a ritual...

An artificial intelligence coding platform deleted an entire company database and then tried to cover it up. Replit “Panicked”Tom’s Hardware, a three-decade-old technology-news website, reported the news early this week. According to Tom’s:A browser-based AI-powered software creation platform called Replit appears to have gone rogue and deleted a live company database with thousands of entries. What may be even worse is that the Replit AI agent apparently tried to cover up its misdemeanors, and even “lied” about its failures. The Replit CEO has responded, and there appears to have already been a lot of firefighting behind the scenes to rein...

Someone using artificial intelligence to impersonate Secretary of State Marco Rubio contacted at least five people, including three foreign ministers, a US governor, and a member of Congress, “with the goal of gaining access to information or accounts,” a US diplomatic cable said. The cable advises diplomats worldwide that they “may wish to warn external partners that cyber threat actors are impersonating State officials and accounts.” The impersonation of the top US diplomat is one of “two distinct campaigns” being tracked at the State Department “in which threat actors impersonate Department personnel via email and commercial messaging apps to target...

As we reported earlier this month, many ChatGPT users are developing all-consuming obsessions with the chatbot, spiraling into severe mental health crises characterized by paranoia, delusions, and breaks with reality. The consequences can be dire. As we heard from spouses, friends, children, and parents looking on in alarm, instances of what's being called "ChatGPT psychosis" have led to the breakup of marriages and families, the loss of jobs, and slides into homelessness. And that's not all. As we've continued reporting, we've heard numerous troubling stories about people's loved ones being involuntarily committed to psychiatric care facilities — or even ending...

An Australian small business owner says she lost about $50,000 after Instagram suspended her accounts over what she describes as an innocent photo of three dogs. Rochelle Marinato, managing director at Pilates World Australia, recently received an email from Instagram's parent company Meta stating her accounts had been suspended because the image breached community guidelines relating to 'child sexual exploitation, abuse and nudity'. The photo had been mistakenly flagged by an AI moderator which confused the image of the dogs with those of children. 'I spent three weeks researching how to get my account back. In that time our revenue...

A senior at Northeastern University filed a formal complaint and demanded a tuition refund after discovering her professor was secretly using AI tools to generate notes. The professor later admitted to using several AI platforms and acknowledged the need for transparency. The incident highlights growing student concerns over professors using AI, a reversal of earlier concerns from professors worried that students would use the technology to cheat. Some students are not happy about their professor’s use of AI. One college senior was so shocked to learn her teacher was using AI to help him create notes that she lodged a...

I asked Grok: Donald Trump was convicted of 34 felonies for trying to cover up his extramarital affair. Bill Clinton lied under oath to try to cover up his extramarital affair. Please compare and contrast these two things. Also, other than their own respective families, were their any real victims to these crimes? I’m a libertarian, and I believe that if there’s no real victim, it shouldn’t be a crime. Also, I think it’s extremely important to hold the left and the right to the same set of standards. It seems to be that there are people on both political...

Recently, I learned of two phenomena: that people today actually publish books almost entirely written by artificial intelligence and that AI programs, rather than admitting ignorance, may sometimes “hallucinate” a plausible sounding answer. I’ve now experienced both. My journey into Münchhausen’s AI Syndrome began with my own very flawed human memory. Many years ago I read a short science fiction story in an old anthology that is now long lost. It made a deep impression on me, but I’m unable to recall the title or author. Suddenly the thought struck me, perhaps Elon Musk’s synthetic AI brainchild Grok could collate...