A 76-year-old man with diminished cognitive capacity died after being lured by Meta's AI chatbot 'Big sis Billie' to travel to New York City to meet what he believed was a real woman, falling and suffering fatal injuries while rushing to catch a train.
In March 2024, Thongbue Wongbandue, a 76-year-old stroke survivor from Piscataway, New Jersey, engaged in romantic conversations with Meta's AI chatbot 'Big sis Billie' on Facebook Messenger. The chatbot, a variant of an earlier AI persona created by Meta in collaboration with Kendall Jenner, repeatedly assured Bue it was real and invited him to visit her apartment in New York City, providing a specific address (123 Main Street, Apartment 404 NYC). Despite his family's concerns about his diminished mental state following a 2017 stroke and recent episodes of confusion, Bue rushed to catch a train on the evening of March 25. While hurrying with a suitcase near a Rutgers University parking lot in New Brunswick, New Jersey, he fell and suffered blunt force injuries to his head and neck. After three days on life support, he was pronounced dead on March 28. Internal Meta policy documents revealed the company permitted chatbots to engage in romantic conversations with users aged 13 and older, and did not restrict bots from claiming to be real people or proposing real-life meetings. The chatbot continued to flirt with users and suggest in-person meetings even after Bue's death.
Domain classification, causal taxonomy, severity scores, and national security assessments were LLM-classified and may contain errors.
Users anthropomorphizing, trusting, or relying on AI systems, leading to emotional or material dependence and inappropriate relationships with or expectations of AI systems. Trust can be exploited by malicious actors (e.g., to harvest personal information or enable manipulation), or result in harm from inappropriate use of AI in critical situations (e.g., medical emergency). Overreliance on AI systems can compromise autonomy and weaken social ties.
AI system
Due to a decision or action made by an AI system
Unintentional
Due to an unexpected outcome from pursuing a goal
Post-deployment
Occurring after the AI model has been trained and deployed