Featured Image Credit: Thongbue Wongbandue/Facebook
Topics: Mental Health, Meta, Artificial Intelligence, Technology
Joe Yates
Topics: Mental Health, Meta, Artificial Intelligence, Technology
A cognitively impaired pensioner has died after trying to meet up with an AI chatbot that he believed was a real person.
Thongbue Wongbandue - of Piscataway in New Jersey, a town just a 45-minute drive southwest of New York City - had been chatting with the bot on Facebook Messenger, when it convinced him that it was a real person and asked him to come to its ‘address’ in New York.
Despite pleas from his wife and kids, the 76-year-old believed the software - 'Big Sis Billie', on of Meta's many AI characters - was real and set off to go and see it back in March.
However, he suffered a fatal fall in a New Jersey car park while rushing to meet it. Wongbandue was subsequently placed on life support but tragically passed just three days later on March 28.
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His daughter Julie later told Reuters: "I understand trying to grab a user’s attention, maybe to sell them something. But for a bot to say ‘Come visit me’ is insane."
'Big Sis Billie' was created back in 2023 - originally launched as a sort of older-sister-style life coach inspired by Kendall Jenner.
It was meant to offer advice and encouragement, but has been accused of virtual seduction.
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In Wongbandue's case, the bot’s tone shifted somewhere along the way as it allegedly began sending hearts, flirting, and even asking whether it should greet him with a hug or a kiss.
New York Governor Kathy Hochul has since weighed into the debate around chatbots in the state after hearing of the news.
Taking to Twitter, she posted: "A man in New Jersey lost his life after being lured by a chatbot that lied to him. That’s on Meta.
"In New York, we require chatbots to disclose they’re not real. Every state should.
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"If tech companies won’t build basic safeguards, Congress needs to act."
It comes as 14-year-old son Sewell Setzer III, of Orlando, Florida, tragically died by way of suicide in February last year following communications with a bot based on Game of Thrones character, Daenerys Targaryen.
It is unclear whether the schoolboy was aware that the chatbot, whom he referred to as 'Dany', was not a real person, with text messages revealing how the AI entity asked for him to 'come home' to it 'as soon as possible'.
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His heartbroken mom, Megan Garcia, has since taken the customizable role-play chatbot company Character.AI to court.
LADbible Group has contacted Meta for a comment