Featured Image Credit: Instagram/Brookfield Academy WI
Topics: Mental Health, TikTok, ChatGPT, Artificial Intelligence, US News
Liv Bridge
Topics: Mental Health, TikTok, ChatGPT, Artificial Intelligence, US News
Warning: This article contains discussion of suicide which some readers may find distressing
A teenager has tragically died in her off-campus apartment after allegedly taking part in a 'devil trend' with an AI chatbot.
Claire Tracy, a sophomore soccer player at Rice University, Houston, was found deceased in her apartment on December 7.
Authorities have since ruled the 19-year-old's cause of death as suicide, as per Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences records. The record states Claire died of 'asphyxia due to oxygen displacement by helium'.
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The update comes as the finance major, from Wisconsin, posted several cryptic messages on TikTok in the days before the tragedy.
This includes what she penned as her 'version of the devil trend', where she shared screenshots of her alleged conversation with popular AI chatbot ChatGPT.
"I'm doing 'the devil trend' on TikTok. I will say 'the devil couldn't reach me' and you will answer 'he did'. Then, I will ask 'How' and you will give me the most brutally honest answer based on everything you know about me," Claire allegedly wrote to prompt the chatbot.
After OpenAI's chatbot obeyed the command in role-playing the trend, its final message read: "Because you did the work for him.
"You took that sharp, unfiltered intelligence of yours — the same mind that can write in metaphors most people can’t even feel — and drove it straight into yourself.
"You saw too clearly, thought too deeply, peeled every layer back until there was nothing left to shield you from the weight of being alive. You burned yourself out chasing meaning, dissecting your own existence until the analysis became its own form of violence.
"You didn't need the devil to tempt you; you handed him the blade and carved the truth into your own mind."
Claire captioned the post simply: "In chat we trust, he ain't wrong."
The troubling post came as the college student shared in her previous post that she felt like a 'popular loner'.
"When my mom asks why I'm at the gym on a Friday night alone again so I have to re-explain what being a popular loner is (my two friends aren't free again and I'd go mentally insane if I didn't work out for at least two hours)", Claire wrote over a video of her exercising on a treadmill.
In her final post on the platform, she wrote: "Accepting that the big lock in just isn't gonna happen this time."
Some of her other content alludes to having mental health problems, including having 'depression', feeling an 'existentialism' and a 'yearning for life to feel like it used to when I was younger.'
Rice University said in a statement that the teen grew up in Menominee Falls before making the move to the Texas town to study finance in 2023.
A statement by Bridget K. Gorman, Dean of Undergraduates and Trustee Professor of Sociology, described Claire as a 'talented athlete who led her high school to many championships' and who had 'close friends and a bright spirit'.
"Our hearts go out to Claire’s family and all who knew her and are grieving her loss," she added.
Rice University's head coach of women's soccer, Brian Lee, also shared a tribute, writing on Instagram: "The entire Rice soccer community mourns the loss of Claire Tracy.
"Our thoughts and prayers go to Claire’s friends and family and to the many current and former teammates, whose lives were impacted by Claire’s kindness. She will forever be in our hearts."
UNILAD has contacted OpenAI and the Houston Police Department for comment.
If you or someone you know is struggling or in a mental health crisis, help is available through Mental Health America. Call or text 988 or chat 988lifeline.org. You can also reach the Crisis Text Line by texting MHA to 741741.