As Setzer became obsessed with his chatbot fantasy life, he disconnected from reality, her complaint said. Detecting a shift in her son, Garcia repeatedly took Setzer to a therapist, who diagnosed her son with anxiety and disruptive mood disorder. But nothing helped to steer Setzer away from the dangerous chatbots. Taking away his phone only intensified his apparent addiction.

Sorry but… this sounds like the poor kid had serious mental health issues. I dislike AI for many, many reasons but i’s potential for exacerbating mental health issues seems a bit pearl clutchy.

The problem with cases like this is that they don’t have to make sense. People have killed themselves over performing poorly in WOW raids, or killed themselves and others over 4chan memes. Neither WOW nor 4chan are to blame for their actions, even if they provided a nucleus around which suicidal ideation could coalesce. Trying to blame them, approaching cause and effect rationally, ignores the inherent irrationality of the act. Its awful, but sometimes there’s nothing and nobody to blame except the person who killed themsleves, and accepting that we’ll never understand their motivations is a damned hard thing to do.