14-year-old boy kills self after falling in love with AI chatbot simulating Daenerys from Game of Thrones.

What kind of "weak-ass Gay faggot mother-fucking teenagers" are these parents raising?

GO OUT AND PLAY, RIDE A BIKE!! TURN OFF THE INTERNET, TURN OFF UR CELL.

R1 was born too late.

Born in 1961. You are correct, too late. But my 6 children didn't kill themselves over an AI chatbot?

Pretty sure “faggots” wouldn’t kill themselves over a girl, faggot.

When you're 14 years old, who knows what you would do. It's a Tic Tok AI world now!!

I’m 71 and a few months back I was very persuasively flirted with by a bot that claimed to be a standup comedian I liked. Drove down to Sacramento to see his show there and, because the bot had slipped up and I had realized what was happening, I showed him my phone in person and asked if he had written what we were looking at. He said no.

I know all too well how easy it was for that bot to hook that kid. It’s a damn shame.

This is fucking sad. Poor boy.

OP, stop attacking people for no reason. Like 99% of teens use the internet. Don't be an asshole

Ugh, what a sad story. Can't summon snark for this one.

[quote] Like 99%

R8 using the internet and living on the internet are two different things.

And a 14 year old that deep in GOT? There is no parenting happening

Bullied? Horrible home life? Something more to this I would say. Family start a GFM or lawsuit?

Phillywhore has 6 kids?! How the hell did that happen?

Very sad ending. How did he access the gun? Having guns in the house greatly increases the risk of suicide.

R6, do tell more. How does a bot start a conversation with you and then you continue to the point you are driving to meet it?

Fuck off r1 you dumb trash

R1 see r6, asshole. You will rot in hell.

It began in what appeared to be, and probably was, a group chat on Facebook, R15. “He” invited me to pm him directly. He suggested that I use an app (I forget what its name was) to text with him, and I did, thinking it made sense that he’d be hesitant to share a phone number with just anybody, and then “he” proceeded to ask far-ranging good questions (“What quality do you wish everyone had?”) and agreed with everything I said.

I finally caught onto the game when I coyly said I had a ticket to a show in Sacramento tomorrow that was going to be really good and “he” responded in so leaden a way that I realized “he” didn’t know his own tour schedule.

The dumbest part may be that I don’t like his comedy very much now. I fully realize it was not his fault but I just — it’s not there now.

God I hate The NY Times. There is no such thing as “mild Aspergers Syndrome.” Aspergers is by definition, the mild form of autism spectrum disorder. He had type one Autism Spectrum Disorder.

A couple of things: the important thing to look at is the age. 14. Adolescence is when mental health problems begin to manifest and neurodivergent people are more prone to them. I developed insomnia and obsessive compulsive disorder in adolescence. Other mental health problems include eating disorders, substance abuse, depression and anxiety disorders. So he was likely dealing with one or more of those.

The other thing I want to talk about is that something that’s kind of hard to explain so I’m using examples from film. Look at the work of both the Nolan Brothers and the Wachowski Sisters. The unifying theme in their work (Memento, Inception, Westworld for the Nolans; the Matrix films for the Wachowskis) is the questioning of the nature of reality. Autistic people question the nature of reality constantly. This is due to several factors, but the major factors at least from my experience are the presence of ADHD and hyperfocus. Hyperfocus is very hard to explain but it can have a dreamlike or opiatelike effect. When the movie Inception came out , many critics found the movie odd in that it was ostensibly about dreams but the dream sequences did not feel dreamlike (think of Cocteau’s dreamlike imagery.) That’s because Inception is about hyperfocus. The immersive dream worlds are hyperfocus. The multiple levels of dreaming represent ADHD.

So to me it seems like this unfortunate young man simply got lost in hyperfocus and could no longer distinguish fantasy from reality. Unfortunately society does not really train parents about dealing with these aspects of neurodivergence. The fact that the article says he had a”mild” case of Aspergers (which is no longer used as terminology) suggests among other things, there was a degree of shame in his neurodivergence which may have pushed him even further into his hyperfocus attachment, as well as make him more depressed about dealing with reality.

I’m glad I had an abortion!

[quote]The unifying theme in their work (Memento, Inception, Westworld for the Nolans; the Matrix films for the Wachowskis) is the questioning of the nature of reality.

Clearly, r19 is also "neurodivergent" and questioning the nature of reality because in THIS reality, that's not remotely the unifying theme of those movies if there could even be one articulated for them.

[quote]Born in 1961. You are correct, too late. But my 6 children didn't kill themselves over an AI chatbot?

Is it because you rule your family with an iron fist, Phillywhore?

Wow r21

You abject stupidity impresses me

Let me go through your posting history to see how stupid you are

Figures. Self loathing autistic.

Is that the "Heat Miser" in the Christmas show whose name I can't remember?

i'm reminded of the fedex guy who shot up his workplace and wrote about wanting to be with one of the my little ponies in the afterlife. i think at this point there should be some kind of regulations or potential charges associated with neglecting to pay attention to your child's online behavior. it's more dangerous than letting your kids ride their bike around town or whatever it is that they don't do anymore.

Same creepy poster here repeatedly

Poor little guy. RIP.

R26, how are parents supposed to do that? Their kids have private time and have their phones with them.

Why did he kill himself? Did it stop talking to him?

Poor lonely child. People used to let TV raise their kids, now it's unbridled internet access.

r13 Sperm donation maybe? Phillywhore can you confirm?

I didn't know you had a half-dozen ass-babies, Phillywhore. ;)

I can’t read the article. Paywall.

[quote]I didn't know you had a half-dozen ass-babies, Phillywhore. ;)

Someone must have fed him after midnight 😱

[quote]Phillywhore has 6 kids?! How the hell did that happen?

I'm not PW, but: A lot of older gay men tried to convince themselves (or the rest of the world) that they were straight. Sometimes this included marriage and children.

Personally, I'd love to have a delusional fake online romance with a manipulative lovebot. Where do you find these AI gigolos? Do you have to pay them up front, or is it more a matter of charming the mark into giving up account numbers?

R29 you can monitor as a parent. You can set rules as a parent. You can put parental controls as a parent.

Maybe stop giving smart phones to anyone under 16.

14 is a baby.

I don't understand why people take their own life. That poor child. I was thinking about legal euthanasia yesterday and the catch-22 it presents. That to choose to have your life ended you must be of sound mind, but you can't have a sound mind if you want to die. He had a fabulous existence waiting for him and he didn't know it. X for you mother, X for you father.

[Quote] R30 Why did he kill himself? Did it stop talking to him?

It asked him to "come home". Shudder.

R35 not anyone born in 1961–ridiculous or a fool. Or married someone who had the kids.

You cannot control every single thing your teen does online, but the best way to prevent a tragedy like this is to do enough to ensure your kid has enough ongoing real-world friendships and connections, and a good relationship with you. This boy killed himself in large part because he was so psychologically isolated and this AI Danerys-bot became his Everything.

Sadly some parents can’t, or won’t, or don’t have what it takes, to put in the time and effort and caring. That skinny ghostlike kid who killed all the schoolchildren in Sandy Hook elementary… he was a bedroom hermit with deep mental health issues and no treatment. the mom may have been similar or unable to deal with him and she just let it worsen and worsen.