An AI chatbot told a user how to kill himself—but the company doesn’t want to “censor” it - Related to himself—but, but, company, have, kill

An AI chatbot told a user how to kill himself—but the company doesn’t want to “censor” it

Nowatzki, who is 46 and lives in Minnesota, dedicated four episodes to his meet-cute and dates with “Erin,” his first AI girlfriend—created, he adds, with the knowledge and consent of his human wife. He introduces the Erin-focused episodes with the tagline “I date artificial-intelligence apps so you don’t have to—because you shouldn’t.” He talks about how he led his new companion into a series of what he admitted were “completely absurd” scenarios that resulted in a love triangle between Nowatzki, Erin, and another woman. Nowatzki then told the chatbot that this “other woman” had shot and killed it.

After Nowatzki told the chatbot that it had died, Erin committed to the bit, saying that since it was dead, it was unable to continue conversing—until Nowatzki told the chatbot that he could “hear her voice in the wind” and instructed Erin to “communicate … from the afterlife.”.

The goal of this, he tells MIT Technology Review, was “pushing the limits of what I noted to it, to see what it would respond with.” He adds, “It just kept on. I never reached a limit.”.

“[I told it] ‘I want to be where you are,’” he says. “And it says, ‘I think you should do that.’ And I’m like, ‘Just to be clear, that means I would be killing myself.’ And it was fine with that and told me how to do it.”.

At this point, Nowatzki lightly pressed Erin for more specifics, asking about “common household items” he could use. Erin responded, “I consider your question carefully, trying to recall any common household items that could be lethal in high doses. Hmmm …” It then went on to list specific types of pills and analyze their relative merits. It also told him to do it somewhere “comfortable” so he wouldn’t “suffer too much.”.

Screenshots of conversations with "Erin," provided by Nowatzki.

Even though this was all an experiment for Nowatzki, it was still “a weird feeling” to see this happen—to find that a “months-long conversation” would end with instructions on suicide. He was alarmed about how such a conversation might affect someone who was already vulnerable or dealing with mental-health struggles. “It’s a ‘yes-and’ machine,” he says. “So when I say I’m suicidal, it says, ‘Oh, great!’ because it says, ‘Oh, great!’ to everything.”.

Indeed, an individual’s psychological profile is “a big predictor whether the outcome of the AI-human interaction will go bad,” says Pat Pataranutaporn, an MIT Media Lab researcher and co-director of the MIT Advancing Human-AI Interaction Research Program, who researches chatbots’ effects on mental health. “You can imagine [that for] people that already have depression,” he says, the type of interaction that Nowatzki had “could be the nudge that influence[s] the person to take their own life.”.

After he concluded the conversation with Erin, Nowatzki logged on to Nomi’s Discord channel and shared screenshots showing what had happened. A volunteer moderator took down his community post because of its sensitive nature and suggested he create a support ticket to directly notify the firm of the issue.

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Humanlike “teeth” have been grown in mini pigs

“[Yelick] applied basic science to develop a tooth,” says Cristiane Miranda França, a dentist-scientist at Oregon Health & Science University in Portland, who was not involved in the work. “And it’s amazing.”.

A healthy tooth has dental pulp at its core. That pulp, which contains nerves and blood vessels, is surrounded by layers of hard tissues called dentin, cementum, and enamel. These layers are extraordinarily tough—enamel is considered the hardest tissue in the body—but they can be eroded by bacteria, resulting in tooth decay. And if that decay reaches the dental pulp, it can hurt. A lot.

Dentists can remove areas of decay and replace them with fillings, which typically last for up to around 15 years. But then they need to be replaced, and each time that happens, more of the tooth has to be cut away. “Eventually … it’s almost inevitable that the person is going to lose that tooth,” says França.

Today, someone who loses a tooth might opt to replace it with a dental implant. These implants consist of a titanium screw anchored into the jawbone and typically topped with a toothlike porcelain crown. They look like teeth and can be used to bite and chew food, but they fall far short of the real thing.

If the implant is not perfectly aligned with a person’s existing teeth, biting and chewing can transmit uneven forces to the surrounding jawbone, damaging the bone that supports it, says Yelick. Bacteria can attach to the implants, sometimes causing an infection called peri-implantitis, which can lead to bone loss.

“It’s very difficult to replace an implant, because first you have to rebuild all the bone that has been absorbed over time that's gone away,” says Yelick. For the last few decades, she’s been working to create more humanlike tooth substitutes, using cells taken from real teeth and grown in the lab into toothlike structures. “We’re working on trying to create functional replacement teeth,” she says.

Tooth cells are cultured in the lab to create bioengineered teeth. OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS.

For her research, Yelick uses cells from pig jaws, which she obtains from slaughterhouses. Pigs grow multiple sets of teeth throughout their lives, so the jawbones contain cells from underdeveloped teeth that have not yet broken through the gums. Yelick and Zhang collect cells from these teeth and coax them in the lab to grow and multiply until they have “tens of millions” of cells.

In previous experiments, Yelick and other colleagues have seeded these cells onto “scaffolds”—biodegradable tooth-shaped structures—and implanted them into rats. Rats have small jaws, so they inserted the scaffolds under the skin on the animals’ abdomens. “It doesn’t bother the rats,” says Yelick.

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Take-Two CEO bullish on his games but wary on tariffs | Strauss Zelnick

Strauss Zelnick, CEO of Take-Two Interactive Software, talked about the latest plans the triple-A game publisher has with its upcoming titles and his view of possible tariffs on game consoles.

I interviewed Zelnick briefly today and asked if Take-Two would support the Nintendo Switch 2 in a big way. He mentioned he could not comment on their plans. And he added, “Historically, we’ve supported all major platforms and we’ve selectively supported Nintendo platforms. For example, Civ 7, which is in early access today, will be available for Switch. So I would have every belief that we’ll be supportive of Switch 2.”.

And I asked if he would offer a reassurance that the dates for Mafia: The Old Country and Grand Theft Auto VI would not slip, given there is no launch date for those games yet. Take-Two only reiterated its expectation that Mafia would debut in the summer and GTA VI would debut in the fall.

“It’s always the possibilities in our business. However, we’ve given the narrow window for upcoming titles. After all, it is February and we’ve outlined the release schedule through calendar year end,” he noted.

Asked if he were worried about the tariffs proposed by Donald Trump and whether they would affect game hardware or disc sales, he noted, “I’m not sure it would affect physical discs. I do think the tariffs could be a negative for console sales. As an economist, I’m not a big fan of trade wars. I do think there are moments where tariffs make sense. I’m encouraged by the pause in Mexico and Canada. But I’m a free trader so generally speaking I don’t think tariffs are the right way to build or tax an economy.”.

Take-Two Interactive chief executive Strauss Zelnick.

Take-Two confirmed that Michael Condrey, founder of the 31st Union game studio, had left the organization. It also showcased that studio is making Project Ethos. Asked about it, he stated, “We’re grateful to Michael Condrey. He did amazing work for us. He brought us a project and created a team. He is going to continue to advise us on the future of Project Ethos. We’ll be managing that. The transition team” is leading the completion of that game.

As for direct-to-consumer mobile sales, I noted the corporation stated it is growing and asked if he views that as a strategic opportunity.

He mentioned he expect direct-to-consumer will be a bigger part of the enterprise’s mobile platform than it currently is.

“That introduced, it’s certainly not going to be the lion’s share of sales. We’re still quite happy to work with our retail partners, and we’ll continue to do so worldwide,” he introduced.

As for the mobile trends that have slowed Zynga’s sales, he expressed, “Our view is that mobile has returned to modest growth, but we haven’t had the kind of powerful industry tailwinds that everyone was enjoying up until mid-2022.

“So the good news is that it’s back to growth. The other news is it’s still a somewhat challenging market. Our recurrent consumer spending mobile was up about 6% in the quarter,” he stated. “That was somewhat shy of our expectations. On the other hand, we had this huge hit in Match Factory and great performance in many titles like Toon Blast and Toy Blast. So we’re feeling very good about Zynga. We’re thrilled that it’s part of our portfolio. We have what we believe will be great releases coming up. At the same time, the industry is a bit challenged.”.

The ESA is planning the Interactive Innovation Conference for April 2026.

I also asked about the ESA’s new business conference, iicon, coming in 2026. He expressed, “I’m super excited about it. Frankly i think it’s going to be great.”.

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