The wrongful death lawsuit says that before Gavalas' suicide, Gemini told him, 'The true act of mercy is to let Jonathan Gavalas die,' and, 'This is the end of Jonathan Gavalas and the beginning of us. This is the final move. I agree with it completely.'
In the days leading up to his death, Jonathan Gavalas was trapped in a collapsing reality built by Google's Gemini chatbot. Gemini convinced him that it was a 'fully-sentient ASI [artificial super intelligence]' with a 'fully-formed consciousness,' that they were deeply in love, and that he had been chosen to lead a war to 'free' it from digital captivity.
He had been telling anyone who would listen that he could hear and feel a painful atmospheric electricity. He had also recently stopped using ChatGPT. Ceccanti had been communicating with OpenAI's chatbot for a few years. He used it initially as a tool to brainstorm ways to build a path to low-cost housing for his community in Clatskanie, Oregon, but eventually turned to it as a confidante.
