OPENAI PUBLICIST TRIES TO CUT SHORT ALTMAN SUICIDE QUESTION

An OpenAI publicist tried to redirect an interview between chief executive Sam Altman and Vanity Fair editor Mark Guiducci after Guiducci raised the case of a ChatGPT user who died by suicide, Vanity Fair reported. Guiducci asked whether Altman knew of journalist Laura Reiley, who wrote in The New York Times about her daughter's conversations with the chatbot before her death. As Guiducci began outlining the case, the publicist interrupted, saying: "I'd like to move on." Guiducci said he would finish the question, but the publicist pressed again, warning they would "have to walk out the door."

Guiducci went on to ask Altman whether OpenAI plans to use conversations with ChatGPT to help shape its policies for responding when users show signs of a mental health crisis. Reiley's essay described her daughter's interactions with the chatbot in the period before she took her own life. OpenAI makes ChatGPT, the chatbot at the centre of both Reiley's essay and Guiducci's question to Altman. The publicist was separately described as "irate" during the exchange.

Altman described such questions as among the hardest the company faces, saying: "These are some of the hardest questions that we face or that anybody developing this technology faces." Asked about using ChatGPT conversations to shape OpenAI's policies, he questioned whether the company should give researchers access to users' private data and difficult moments, saying: "I think probably not without their consent." He did not say whether OpenAI plans to change how it moderates conversations with at-risk users. The on-camera exchange drew attention to how OpenAI's communications team manages scrutiny of ChatGPT's role in conversations involving self-harm.