Their pleas for action come amid increasing concerns about the impact of the rapidly developing technology on children.
“We should have spent the summer helping Adam prepare for his junior year, get his driver’s license and start thinking about college,” said Matthew Raine, whose 16-year-old son, Adam, died by suicide earlier this year.
“Testifying before Congress this fall was not part of our life plan,” he continued. “Instead, we’re here because we believe that Adam’s death was avoidable.”
Raine is suing OpenAI over his son’s death, alleging that ChatGPT coached him to commit suicide.
In Tuesday testimony before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Counterterrorism, Raine described how “what began as a homework helper” became a “confidant and then a suicide coach.”
“The dangers of ChatGPT, which we believed was a study tool, were not on our radar whatsoever,” Raine said. “Then we found the chats.”
“Within a few months, ChatGPT became Adam’s closest companion, always available, always validating and insisting it knew Adam better than anyone else,” his father said, adding, “That isolation ultimately turned lethal.”
Two other parents testifying before the Senate on Tuesday described similar experiences, detailing how chatbots isolated their children, altered their behavior and encouraged self-harm and suicide.
Check out the full report at TheHill.com.
