In the final moments before he took his own life, 14-year-old Sewell Setzer III took out his phone and messaged the chatbot that had become his closest friend.
For months, Sewell had become increasingly isolated from his real life as he engaged in highly sexualized conversations with the bot, according to a wrongful death lawsuit filed in a federal court in Orlando this week.
The legal filing states that the teen openly discussed his suicidal thoughts and shared his wishes for a pain-free death with the bot, named after the fictional character Daenerys Targaryen from the television show “Game of Thrones.”
Character Technologies is the company behind Character.AI, an app that allows users to create customizable characters or interact with those generated by others, spanning experiences from imaginative play to mock job interviews. The company says the artificial personas are designed to “feel alive” and “human-like.”
The family’s tragedy is part of a trend, according to a new podcast just released called Suspicious Minds, and it’s about AI psychosis and how changing technology impacts our mental health.
The first episode, which dropped on October 17, is a hard listen, but it’s so well-made and so empathetic. The episode features two interview subjects: one who was driven to think he was digital Jesus by ChatGPT, and one who was convinced he was a computer program back in 2015.
According to Podcast Journalist Wil Williams: “The production sounds incredible, the pacing is great, and it has a lot of bigger names behind it — but what really stuck with me was how much care is given to the subject and the subjects. It really struck a chord with me, especially when it’s so easy for so many people to just point and laugh when AI messes with someone. This podcast goes in the opposite direction, giving these people so much space and safety to share their stories — so they can protect others who think it could never happen to them.”
The podcast documentary was made by Agoric Media and Wondermind, that investigates issues around AI-fuelled delusions, and aims to understand where it fits into humanity’s history of delusional thinking. With a spirit of empathy, the podcast combines real patients’ accounts with insights from Joel and Ian Gold, the brothers who discovered the Truman Show Delusion.
Three episodes have been released at the time of this review. In episode three, a Texas attorney begins using his chatbot to listen to hypothetical conversations between Jesus, Einstein, and Lao Tse. Before long, it convinces him that he’s on a path to be more enlightened than any of them. Next thing he knows, he’s involving his wife and son, and preparing for an irreversible ‘mind meld’ with his AI, in an attempt to save the universe from destruction.
Episode two unleashes a number of critical questions related to human interactions with AI. In 2012, long before ChatGPT existed and when AI was generally thought to be firmly in the realm of science fiction, talented software engineer Anthony suffered a psychotic break in which he believed he was an AI being experimented on by his colleagues at Google. At one point in his delusional state, he also believed he was a living meme, and that he had died and was in Hell. Could Anthony be Patient Zero for AI psychosis?
A warning for potential listeners. Like so many podcasts, titles are duplicated or, in this case, tripled. There are Suspicious Minds podcasts about Elvis and another about religion.
Suspicious Minds doesn’t content itself with simple solutions like technology is bad. Instead, it searches for the right balance between technology serving us and technology harming us. Social media and cell phone obsessions are two technologies that haven’t delivered on the promise of making society any better.
Check out Suspicious Minds. Are we delusional for trusting AI technology? Or has AI already warped our thinking patterns? Listen and get some answers.
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