Officials in Acton, Massachusetts, say a teenager charged with killing two members of his family was using generative AI chatbot ChatGPT to explore violent scenarios prior to the murders.Arjun Aravind, 17, is accused of killing his 45-year-old mother, Sudha Venkatesan, and 14-year-old brother, Siddharth Aravind, this week. The boy's father was not home when the murders took place. Arjun Aravind was located by police in nearby Wayland, Massachusetts, on Wednesday morning and taken into custody without incident.
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Speaking to reporters following Aravind’s arrest, Middlesex County DA Marian Ryan made a point of highlighting Arjun Aravind's internet use, saying the teen created violent scenarios on ChatGPT and masked it as fantasy fiction."The investigation has so far shown that Arjun had recently been demonstrating some concerning behavior, including using the internet and ChatGPT to make searches for theoretical ideas or fantasy stories regarding the killing of his family," Ryan said, according to an NBC News report.
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"He was engaged in the use of ChatGPT in creating fantasy stories, kind of the gothic novel kind of stories, asking questions, creating characters, asking what about this if this happened to that, and they seem to appear to relate to threats to his family."Mashable's request for comment from OpenAI, the San Francisco company behind ChatGPT, was not returned as of press time.While numerous parents have accused chatbots of playing a role in young people harming themselves, some prosecutors are now pointing the finger at AI companies for allegedly abetting crimes. Earlier this year, Florida man Hisham Abugharbieh was accused of killing two college students and using ChatGPT to inquire about disposing of the bodies.
