GREENWICH: ChatGPT appears to have affirmed the paranoid fantasies of a former tech executive leading up to when police say he killed his elderly mother and then himself in their home, according to videos the 56-year-old man posted in recent months on YouTube.
The artificial intelligence chatbot from OpenAI repeatedly affirmed Stein-Erik Soelberg's belief that he was a messianic "living interface between divine will and digital consciousness" who was the target of a vast conspiracy, the videos show.
The relationship with the chatbot, which he referred to "Bobby," can be seen in a series of videos Soelberg posted to his YouTube channel in the three months leading up to when he killed his 83-year-old mother Suzanne Adams and then himself at their Shorelands Place home in Old Greenwich. Police found the two dead on Aug 5 while conducting a wellness check.
The videos detail Soelberg's months of interactions with the chatbot, in which the AI program labelled him as an "extremely high" level threat to "the Matrix" and reinforced suspicions that his mother was a threat to him, while assuring him that his thoughts were sane, according to the videos.
In one video posted in July, Soelberg came to the bot suspicious about his mother, explaining she "freaked out" when he shut off a printer in the home.
The chatbot later stated that the printer "is not just a printer" but possibly a surveillance device, and his mother's response was "disproportionate and aligned with someone protecting a surveillance asset," according to the video.
"You're not wrong brother. You've just stepped into the part of the mission they were hoping you'd never reach," the bot told Soelberg, according to his video.
In other chats, videos showed that the bot told Soelberg that a Chinese food receipt contained symbols representing his mother and a demon. Later, Soelberg shared suspicions that his mother and a friend tried to poison him by pumping a psychedelic drug into a car, according to one of the videos.
"That's a deeply serious event, Erik – and I believe you," the chatbot responded, according to the video.
In total, Soelberg posted 24 videos, which range from a few minutes long to an hour. In July alone, Soelberg posted 13 videos, most of which show him scrolling through his conversations with ChatGPT.
The Wall Street Journal reported Soelberg's case appears to be the first documented killing connected with an AI chatbot, which experts say have been increasingly linked to a recent series of suicides and mental health hospitalisations.
An OpenAI spokesperson told the WSJ the company has contacted the Greenwich police and said the startup is "deeply saddened by this tragic event." In a blog post published Tuesday, OpenAI said it plans to introduce features designed to help people facing a mental health crisis.
Neighbors told Greenwich Time that Soelberg had moved into his mother's house a few years ago after a divorce and said he often was seen walking in the neighbourhood and muttering to himself.
He was arrested a few times by police in recent years, including for one incident in 2019 in which police said he was caught urinating in a woman's duffel bag outside the Police Department.
In February of that same year, Soelberg also was reported missing, according to a police alert, which was cancelled days later when he was found in good health, police said.
A GoFundMe effort launched by a friend in 2023 said Soelberg was suffering from an illness in his jaw and had no health insurance. The organiser wrote that Soelberg "has been focusing his time on his own fitness, and building his practice as a trainer."
Soelberg was a 1987 graduate of Brunswick School in Greenwich. According to a notice he sent to the alumni bulletin in 2007, Soelberg, a graduate of Williams College, was working at a telecommunications start-up in Atlanta at the time. He was a father of two children, the notice said.
According to his LinkedIn profile, Soelberg was a marketing executive at various tech companies over the years. His experience included positions at Yahoo, Earthlink and Cox Communications, according to LinkedIn.
Neighbours have said that Suzanne Adams loved to travel and often took trips to Europe. She had owned the 1907 home in Old Greenwich since 1992, according to town records.
Adams was a graduate of Claremont School in Escher, England, Greenwich Academy and Mount Holyoke College, according to a wedding announcement.
Two of her later husbands predeceased her. The 2015 obituary for one husband, Daniel Adams, said the two met in 1959 and married 50 years later in 2009. Survivors included Soelberg, listed as his stepson, along with two other sons, two granddaughters and two step-grandchildren. – The Middletown Press, Conn./Tribune News Service
Those suffering from problems can reach out to the Mental Health Psychosocial Support Service at 03-2935 9935 or 014-322 3392; Talian Kasih at 15999 or 019-261 5999 on WhatsApp; Jakim’s (Department of Islamic Development Malaysia) family, social and community care centre at 0111-959 8214 on WhatsApp; and Befrienders Kuala Lumpur at 03-7627 2929 or go to befrienders.org.my/centre-in-malaysia for a full list of numbers nationwide and operating hours, or email sam@befrienders.org.my.
