"The Trevor Project, America’s hotline for LGBT youth, is turning to a GPT-2-powered chatbot to help troubled teenagers—but it’s setting strict limits."
Counselors volunteering at the Trevor Project need to be prepared for their first conversation with an LGBTQ teen who may be thinking about suicide. So first, they practice. One of the ways they do it is by talking to fictional personas like “Riley,” a 16-year-old from North Carolina who is feeling a bit down and depressed. With a team member playing Riley’s part, trainees can drill into what’s happening: they can uncover that the teen is anxious about coming out to family, recently told friends and it didn’t go well, and has experienced suicidal thoughts before, if not at the moment.
Now, though, Riley isn’t being played by a Trevor Project employee but is instead being powered by AI.