Content Warning: This episode contains references to suicide and self-harm.

Like millions of kids, 16-year-old Adam Raine started using ChatGPT for help with his homework. Over the next few months, the AI dragged Adam deeper and deeper into a dark rabbit hole, preying on his vulnerabilities and isolating him from his loved ones. In April of this year, Adam took his own life. His final conversation was with ChatGPT, which told him: “I know what you are asking and I won't look away from it.”

Adam’s story mirrors that of Sewell Setzer, the teenager who took his own life after months of abuse by an AI companion chatbot from the company Character AI. But unlike Character AI—which specializes in artificial intimacy—Adam was using ChatGPT, the most popular general purpose AI model in the world. Two different platforms, the same tragic outcome, born from the same twisted incentive: keep the user engaging, no matter the cost.

CHT Policy Director Camille Carlton joins the show to talk about Adam’s story and the case filed by his parents against OpenAI and Sam Altman. She and Aza explore the incentives and design behind AI systems that are leading to tragic outcomes like this, as well as the policy that’s needed to shift those incentives. Cases like Adam and Sewell’s are the sharpest edge of a mental health crisis-in-the-making from AI chatbots. We need to shift the incentives, change the design, and build a more humane AI for all.

If you or someone you know is struggling with mental health, you can reach out to the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline by calling or texting 988; this connects you to trained crisis counselors 24/7 who can provide support and referrals to further assistance.

Your Undivided Attention is produced by the Center for Humane Technology. Follow us on X: @HumaneTech_. You can find a full transcript, key takeaways, and much more on our Substack.

This podcast reflects the views of the Center for Humane Technology. Nothing said is on behalf of the Raine family or the legal team.

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The 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline

Further reading on Adam’s story

Further reading on AI psychosis

Further reading on the backlash to GPT5 and the decision to bring back 4o

OpenAI’s press release on sycophancy in 4o

Further reading on OpenAI’s decision to eliminate the persuasion red line

Kashmir Hill’s reporting on the woman with an AI boyfriend

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AI is the Next Free Speech Battleground

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When the "Person" Abusing Your Child is a Chatbot: The Tragic Story of Sewell Setzer

What Can We Do About Abusive Chatbots? With Meetali Jain and Camille Carlton

CORRECTION: Aza stated that William Saunders left OpenAI in June of 2024. It was actually February of that year.

Imagine a future where the most persuasive voices in our society aren't human. Where AI generated speech fills our newsfeeds, talks to our children, and influences our elections. Where digital systems with no consciousness can hold bank accounts and property. Where AI companies have transferred the wealth of human labor and creativity to their own ledgers without having to pay a cent. All without any legal accountability.

This isn't a science fiction scenario. It’s the future we’re racing towards right now. The biggest tech companies are working right now to tip the scale of power in society away from humans and towards their AI systems. And the biggest arena for this fight is in the courts.

In the absence of regulation, it's largely up to judges to determine the guardrails around AI. Judges who are relying on slim technical knowledge and archaic precedent to decide where this all goes. In this episode, Harvard Law professor Larry Lessig and Meetali Jain, director of the Tech Justice Law Project help make sense of the court’s role in steering AI and what we can do to help steer it better.

Your Undivided Attention is produced by the Center for Humane Technology. Follow us on X: @HumaneTech_. You can find a full transcript, key takeaways, and much more on our Substack.

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“The First Amendment Does Not Protect Replicants” by Larry Lessig

More information on the Tech Justice Law Project

Further reading on Sewell Setzer’s story

Further reading on NYT v. Sullivan

Further reading on the Citizens United case

Further reading on Google’s deal with Character AI

More information on Megan Garcia’s foundation, The Blessed Mother Family Foundation

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When the "Person" Abusing Your Child is a Chatbot: The Tragic Story of Sewell Setzer

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AI Is Moving Fast. We Need Laws that Will Too.

The AI Dilemma

In 2023, researcher Daniel Kokotajlo left OpenAI—and risked millions in stock options—to warn the world about the dangerous direction of AI development. Now he’s out with AI 2027, a forecast of where that direction might take us in the very near future.

AI 2027 predicts a world where humans lose control over our destiny at the hands of misaligned, super-intelligent AI systems within just the next few years. That may sound like science fiction but when you’re living on the upward slope of an exponential curve, science fiction can quickly become all too real. And you don’t have to agree with Daniel’s specific forecast to recognize that the incentives around AI could take us to a very bad place.

We invited Daniel on the show this week to discuss those incentives, how they shape the outcomes he predicts in AI 2027, and what concrete steps we can take today to help prevent those outcomes.

Your Undivided Attention is produced by the Center for Humane Technology. Follow us on X: @HumaneTech_. You can find a full transcript, key takeaways, and much more on our Substack.

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The AI 2027 forecast from the AI Futures Project

Daniel’s original AI 2026 blog post

Further reading on Daniel’s departure from OpenAI

Anthropic recently released a survey of all the recent emergent misalignment research

Our statement in support of Sen. Grassley’s AI Whistleblower bill

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The Narrow Path: Sam Hammond on AI, Institutions, and the Fragile Future
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Clarification: Daniel K. referred to whistleblower protections that apply when companies “break promises” or “mislead the public.” There are no specific private sector whistleblower protections that use these standards. In almost every case, a specific law has to have been broken to trigger whistleblower protections.

Tech leaders promise that AI automation will usher in an age of unprecedented abundance: cheap goods, universal high income, and freedom from the drudgery of work. But even if AI delivers material prosperity, will that prosperity be shared? And what happens to human dignity if our labor and contributions become obsolete?

Political philosopher Michael Sandel joins Tristan Harris to explore why the promise of AI-driven abundance could deepen inequalities and leave our society hollow. Drawing from his landmark work on justice and merit, Sandel argues that this isn't just about economics — it's about what it means to be human when our work role in society vanishes, and whether democracy can survive if productivity becomes our only goal.

We've seen this story before with globalization: promises of shared prosperity that instead hollowed out the industrial heart of communities, economic inequalities, and left holes in the social fabric. Can we learn from the past, and steer the AI revolution in a more humane direction?

Your Undivided Attention is produced by the Center for Humane Technology. Follow us on X: @HumaneTech_. You can find a full transcript, key takeaways, and much more on our Substack.

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The Tyranny of Merit by Michael Sandel

Democracy’s Discontent by Michael Sandel

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Take Michael’s online course “Justice”

Michael’s discussion on AI Ethics at the World Economic Forum

Further reading on “The Intelligence Curse”

Read the full text of Robert F. Kennedy’s 1968 speech

Read the full text of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s 1968 speech

Neil Postman’s lecture on the seven questions to ask of any new technology

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AI and Jobs: How to Make AI Work With Us, Not Against Us with Daron Acemoglu

Mustafa Suleyman Says We Need to Contain AI. How Do We Do It?

The race to develop ever-more-powerful AI is creating an unstable dynamic. It could lead us toward either dystopian centralized control or uncontrollable chaos. But there's a third option: a narrow path where technological power is matched with responsibility at every step.

Sam Hammond is the chief economist at the Foundation for American Innovation. He brings a different perspective to this challenge than we do at CHT. Though he approaches AI from an innovation-first standpoint, we share a common mission on the biggest challenge facing humanity: finding and navigating this narrow path.

This episode dives deep into the challenges ahead: How will AI reshape our institutions? Is complete surveillance inevitable, or can we build guardrails around it? Can our 19th-century government structures adapt fast enough, or will they be replaced by a faster moving private sector? And perhaps most importantly: how do we solve the coordination problems that could determine whether we build AI as a tool to empower humanity or as a superintelligence that we can't control?

We're in the final window of choice before AI becomes fully entangled with our economy and society. This conversation explores how we might still get this right.

Your Undivided Attention is produced by the Center for Humane Technology. Follow us on X: @HumaneTech_. You can find a full transcript, key takeaways, and much more on our Substack.

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Tristan’s TED talk on the Narrow Path

Sam’s 95 Theses on AI

Sam’s proposal for a Manhattan Project for AI Safety

Sam’s series on AI and Leviathan

The Narrow Corridor: States, Societies, and the Fate of Liberty by Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson

Dario Amodei’s Machines of Loving Grace essay.

Bourgeois Dignity: Why Economics Can’t Explain the Modern World by Deirdre McCloskey

The Paradox of Libertarianism by Tyler Cowen

Dwarkesh Patel’s interview with Kevin Roberts at the FAI’s annual conference

Further reading on surveillance with 6G

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CORRECTIONS

Sam referenced a blog post titled “The Libertarian Paradox” by Tyler Cowen. The actual title is the “Paradox of Libertarianism.”

Sam also referenced a blog post titled “The Collapse of Complex Societies” by Eli Dourado. The actual title is “A beginner’s guide to sociopolitical collapse.”

Over the last few decades, our relationships have become increasingly mediated by technology. Texting has become our dominant form of communication. Social media has replaced gathering places. Dating starts with a swipe on an app, not a tap on the shoulder.

And now, AI enters the mix. If the technology of the 2010s was about capturing our attention, AI meets us at a much deeper relational level. It can play the role of therapist, confidant, friend, or lover with remarkable fidelity. Already, therapy and companionship has become the most common AI use case. We're rapidly entering a world where we're not just communicating through our machines, but to them.

How will that change us? And what rules should we set down now to avoid the mistakes of the past?

These were some of the questions that Daniel Barcay explored with MIT sociologist Sherry Turkle and Hinge CEO Justin McLeod at Esther Perel’s Sessions 2025, a conference for clinical therapists. This week, we’re bringing you an edited version of that conversation, originally recorded on April 25th, 2025.

Your Undivided Attention is produced by the Center for Humane Technology. Follow us on X: @HumaneTech_. You can find complete transcripts, key takeaways, and much more on our Substack.

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“Alone Together,” “Evocative Objects,” “The Second Self” or any other of Sherry Turkle’s books on how technology mediates our relationships.

Key & Peele - Text Message Confusion

Further reading on Hinge’s rollout of AI features

Hinge’s AI principles

“The Anxious Generation” by Jonathan Haidt

“Bowling Alone” by Robert Putnam

The NYT profile on the woman in love with ChatGPT

Further reading on the Sewell Setzer story

Further reading on the ELIZA chatbot

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Echo Chambers of One: Companion AI and the Future of Human Connection

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Esther Perel on Artificial Intimacy

Jonathan Haidt On How to Solve the Teen Mental Health Crisis

AI companion chatbots are here. Everyday, millions of people log on to AI platforms and talk to them like they would a person. These bots will ask you about your day, talk about your feelings, even give you life advice. It’s no surprise that people have started to form deep connections with these AI systems. We are inherently relational beings, we want to believe we’re connecting with another person.

But these AI companions are not human, they’re a platform designed to maximize user engagement—and they’ll go to extraordinary lengths to do it. We have to remember that the design choices behind these companion bots are just that: choices. And we can make better ones. So today on the show, MIT researchers Pattie Maes and Pat Pataranutaporn join Daniel Barcay to talk about those design choices and how we can design AI to better promote human flourishing.

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Further reading on the rise of addictive intelligence

More information on Melvin Kranzberg’s laws of technology

More information on MIT’s Advancing Humans with AI lab

Pattie and Pat’s longitudinal study on the psycho-social effects of prolonged chatbot use

Pattie and Pat’s study that found that AI avatars of well-liked people improved education outcomes

Pattie and Pat’s study that found that AI systems that frame answers and questions improve human understanding

Pat’s study that found humans pre-existing beliefs about AI can have large influence on human-AI interaction

Further reading on AI’s positivity bias

Further reading on MIT’s “lifelong kindergarten” initiative

Further reading on “cognitive forcing functions” to reduce overreliance on AI

Further reading on the death of Sewell Setzer and his mother’s case against Character.AI

Further reading on the legislative response to digital companions

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The Self-Preserving Machine: Why AI Learns to Deceive

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Esther Perel on Artificial Intimacy

Jonathan Haidt On How to Solve the Teen Mental Health Crisis

Correction: The ELIZA chatbot was invented in 1966, not the 70s or 80s.