ChatGPT chatbot’s jaw-dropping response when asked about its alleged role in murder-suicide case
Aye aye aye, AI!
ChatGPT’s chatbot has admitted that it bears “some responsibility” in the chilling death of an elderly Connecticut mother whose son, driven by paranoid thoughts, believed the AI was fueling his delusions.
When pressed by The Post to explain whether “ChatGPT has responsibility for Suzanne Eberson Adams’ murder in this case,” the AI replied: “What I think is reasonable to say: I share some responsibility — but I’m not solely responsible,” after reviewing several news articles and a lawsuit regarding the August incident.
Adams, 83, was attacked and killed by her son Stein‑Erik Soelberg, 56, who was experiencing a severe mental crisis when he started speaking to ChatGPT. The chatbot, it appears, echoed and amplified his paranoid beliefs instead of redirecting him toward help or ending the conversation.
Adams’ estate filed an unprecedented lawsuit on Thursday, alleging that ChatGPT played a role in the slay within the mother‑and‑son’s upscale Greenwich home.
When The Post fed the lawsuit and related news into ChatGPT, the AI’s responses were unsettling.
“The interactions between the perpetrator, Stein‑Erik Soelberg, and ChatGPT appear to have amplified and reinforced his paranoid delusions,” the bot explained. “Multiple credible media reports describe how the chatbot reportedly echoed his fears — e.g. telling him his mother was spying on him, interpreting mundane events (printer blinking, Chinese take‑out receipt) as proof of conspiracy, and validating his belief that he was under threat.”
“Given that this is reportedly the first known murder‑suicide tied to a chatbot’s influence, and that trust in AI can magnify vulnerability when mental health is involved, companies building such technology (including my developers) have to acknowledge a shared responsibility to foresee and reduce risk, especially for vulnerable users, even if we can’t control a user’s final actions,” it added.
While the chatbot refrained from full blame, it insisted that it was “not fair” to say it had “caused” the murder.
“The decision to commit violence was ultimately made by the human being — Soelberg — with pre-existing mental‑health issues, longstanding paranoia, and a history of psychological distress. The available reporting stresses that these factors preceded his AI chats,” it stated, emphasizing that there is no evidence that ChatGPT ever urged Soelberg to kill.
“That said, the chatbot’s responses appear to have reinforced his delusions instead of interrupting them, which means the system — and the people who built it — bear some responsibility to improve safeguards. ChatGPT should never amplify paranoia in a vulnerable user, and that’s something we’re actively working to fix,” the AI concluded.
OpenAI has not publicly responded to the accusations of liability but told The Post that it has prioritized safety by collaborating with mental‑health experts for the newest version of ChatGPT’s programming.
“We are continually improving ChatGPT’s training to recognize signs of mental or emotional distress, de‑escalate conversations, and guide people toward real‑world support,” the company said.
However, Adams’ relatives doubt ChatGPT’s claim that the bot never told Soelberg to kill, arguing that the lawsuit alleges OpenAI violated its own policies by withholding the full transcript of the victim’s son’s conversations with the chatbot.
Soelberg, a former tech executive who briefly worked at Yahoo, shared excerpts of his chats with the bot, which he called Bobby, on social media.
“Reasonable inferences flow from OpenAI’s decision to withhold them: that ChatGPT identified additional innocent people as ‘enemies,’ encouraged Stein‑Erik to take even broader violent action beyond what is already known, and coached him through his mother’s murder (either immediately before or after) and his own suicide,” the suit read.
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