Hacker News Reader

Comment by fhn | Hacker News Reader

In America, AI companies get sued because people died asking AI questions.

Oof that's a nasty way to characterize the people who ended up killing themselves after falling into a proverbial hole talking to these companys' products during mental crisis.

You can feel like companies have no responsibility for how their products are used but it might be worth showing some grace to the people who are dead now by not trying to downplay what happened to them by implying it was just like everyone else's experience of "asking ai questions".

Not sure if the comment was regarding the suicides. That would be a bit gruesome. But the US had been known to judge in favor of people being stupid and suing the company. Specifically this case comes to mind: https://abc7.com/amp/post/socal-woman-sues-starbucks-spilled...

But also cases like the 2 girls suing Snapchat and settling for unknown amounts of money.

That woman's labia fused as a result of coffee that internal emails showed they knew was frequently hotter than was safe.

This involved drive-through service, just like the 1994 McDonalds coffee case. Perhaps businesses should just refuse to serve hot coffee via such a drive through, since it stands to reason that people who happen to be sitting in a car will be quite likely to spill their drink in a dangerous way.

or they could just not serve coffee that's so hot that it melts your flesh

Reply on news.ycombinator.com