Technology will always adapt to try to fill needs that God designed to be met naturally in his creation. But AI chatbots fall short of real human connection.
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I suspect most middle-aged Americans had never heard of Character.AI until The New York Times ran the tragic story of how 14-year-old Sewell Setzer III committed suicide after an obsessive and toxic relationship with a character from the AI chatbot service.
Setzer would spend several hours a day in his room chatting with an avatar based on Daenerys Targaryen from Game of Thrones. Their relationship was romantic and erotic at times. Setzer withdrew from his friends, hobbies, and school and focused solely on his digital relationship with the chatbot. Virtual reality overtook reality. Horrifyingly, over time he was able to convince the chatbot they’d be better off dead together. And so he took his life.
