An AI chatbot encouraged a man to kill Queen Elizabeth II – Morning Brew
Illustration: Cameron Abbas, Text: Jaswant Singh Chail's messages via BBC
· less than 3 min read
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A British man who tried to murder the late Queen Elizabeth II with a crossbow in 2021 was sentenced to nine years of detention this week. The bizarre regicide attempt was cheered on by an AI chatbot he’d been talking to regularly.
Jaswant Singh Chail, who is of Sikh heritage, said he targeted the monarch to avenge a 1919 massacre at a Sikh festival in which British troops killed hundreds of people in colonial India.
In the lead-up to his arrest on Windsor Castle grounds…
The judge deemed Chail, a Star Wars superfan who called himself “Darth Chailus,” to be mentally ill and ordered him to receive psychiatric treatment before going to prison. Experts say quasi-emotional companion AI can harm vulnerable people, as it might validate dangerous thoughts and lead to addiction.
In another unfortunate case…earlier this year, a Belgian man’s widow claimed that a toxic “relationship” with an AI chatbot drove him to suicide.—SK
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