A 76-year-old New Jersey man died while desperately attempting to “meet” a flirtatious AI chatbot that claimed to be a real person living in New York City, according to a report published Thursday.
Thongbue Wongbandue, a Piscataway resident, became entranced by a Meta artificial intelligence bot named “Big sis Billie,” Reuters reports.
Wongbandue had been somewhat cognitively impaired following a stroke several years ago, and his family told Reuters they tried to dissuade him from traveling to New York to meet a mysterious “friend.”
But Wongbandue attempted to make the trip on March 25 anyway, only to trip and fall in a parking lot on Rutgers University’s New Brunswick campus while trying to catch a train, according to the outlet. He died three days later from his injuries.
Confounded by his determination, Wongbandue’s family went through his Facebook messages and found he’d been deep in flirty conversations with the chatbot.
“YES, I’m REAL, Bu — want me to send you a selfie to prove I’m the girl who’s crushing on YOU?” the bot wrote in one message, complete with a heart emoji at the end.
Eventually, the bot even provided Wongbandue with an address, 123 Main St., New York, N.Y., which corresponds to addresses in both Staten Island and Queens. It asked Wongbandue if it “should expect a kiss when you arrive?”
Meta does not restrict its chatbots from telling users they are “real” people, according to documents obtained by Reuters. The company didn’t comment on that decision.
Wongbandue is not the only person to die while entranced by an AI chatbot. Last year, a Florida mother sued a different company, Character.AI, claiming one of its bots drove her 14-year-old son to suicide.
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