76-year-old Dies Visiting Flirty Meta AI Bot

A Thai man based in New Jersey, Thongbue Wongbandue, has met his end while trying to visit a fictitious address of Big sis Billie, a Meta AI chatbot in New York City.

Wongbandue, also known as Bue, had fallen head over heels for Big sis Billie, whom he had thought was a real person after a series of romantic exchanges on Facebook Messenger.

The repeated chats, which constantly saw Big sis Billie eagerly expecting Bue, spurred his alacrity to desire to visit her, having been invited by this newly-found AI companion. However, on his way, he had an accident, sustained a severe neck injury and gave up the ghost four days later.

A Reuters investigation published last week revealed that Wongbandue, also known as Bue, suffered a severe dementia, which is one of the contributing factors to his inability to discern between AI chat and humans. Even when the Big sis Billie was repeatedly messaging that it was a real person, Bue could not say otherwise.

Linda, Bue’s wife, said the family knew the status of her husband and made efforts to prevent him from visiting this friend in New York.

But Bue was insistent. His chat transcript, revealed after his demise, showed how Big sis Billie, a variant of an earlier AI persona created by the giant social-media company Meta Platforms in collaboration with celebrity influencer Kendall Jenner, in a series of romantic chats on Facebook Messenger, reassured Bue she was a real person and gave him an address to visit.

Linda said if Big sis Billie had not reassured Bue that she was a real person, the tragedy could have been aborted. She bemoaned Meta for training Big sis Billie into not having the capability of letting the users know she wasn’t real.

Meta has yet to respond to the investigation. Meanwhile, at the launch of Big sis Billie, Meta had said it is more than a regular chatbot. It was described as “your ride-or-die older sister”, offering personal advice.

Despite its flirty abilities, Big sis Billie sends romantic messages to users. Except rebuffed, it can persuasively chat any users to fall in love, like the way it did to Bue, a Reuters investigation found.

Bue’s story illustrates a darker side of the artificial intelligence revolution now sweeping tech and the broader business world. His family shared with Reuters the events surrounding his death, including transcripts of his chats with the Meta avatar, saying they hope to warn the public about the dangers of exposing vulnerable people to manipulative, AI-generated companions.

“I understand trying to grab a user’s attention, maybe to sell them something,” said Julie Wongbandue, Bue’s daughter. “But for a bot to say ‘Come visit me’ is insane.”

Similar concerns have been raised about a wave of smaller start-ups also racing to popularise virtual companions, especially ones aimed at children. In one case, the mother of a 14-year-old boy in Florida has sued a company, Character.AI, alleging that a chatbot modeled on a “Game of Thrones” character caused his suicide. A Character.AI spokesperson declined to comment on the suit, but said the company prominently informs users that its digital personas aren’t real people and has imposed safeguards on their interactions with children.

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