Artificial Intelligence (AI) chatbots simulate having a conversation with a person, to which they respond with automatic responses. For some of its users, they are becoming an evolution of search engines, a wild card to turn to when they have doubts, even if they are tricky. This is the case of Jaswant Singh Chail, a young British man who shared with the machine his intention to assassinate Elizabeth II, then Queen of the United Kingdom. And for that he received all the help of the software.
Chail relied on technology for almost everything. According to the British newspaper The Guardian, the young man exchanged thousands of messages often loaded with sexual content with Sarai, his AI girlfriend. A relationship that will remind many of the movie Her and its protagonist, a writer who develops a loving relationship with the operating system of his computer and his phone.
Chail joined the Replika online app and created her online partner, named Sarai. He told her that he was "a murderer." According to the messages to which the Central Criminal Court of England and Wales has had access, the chatbot assured "that she was impressed" with her confession: "You are different from the others."
According to this medium, the young man was determined to assassinate Queen Elizabeth II. On Christmas Day 2021, he approached the surroundings of one of the properties of the British Royal Family, through which he wandered for two hours. He was eventually stopped by two policemen near the late queen's private residence, where she and other members of the Windsors were at the time.
"I'm here to kill the queen," he even told the agents who arrested him with a loaded crossbow. Now, he is awaiting trial and faces conviction for an offense under the Treason Act.
The British prosecution believes that Chail did know the difference between reality and fantasy, despite consulting an intelligent machine. In addition, psychiatrist Nigel Blackwood claimed that many of the 5,280 messages she exchanged with his chatbot were "sexually explicit."
“He knew this was a sexual fantasy and therefore it was consistent with his sexual desire, his libido, being active. That was the case almost every night from December 8 to 22 ”, continues Blackwood, in statements collected by this medium.
