A cognitively impaired New Jersey senior met the dark side of artificial intelligence when he died while attempting to get together with an attractive AI chatbot he thought was living in New York City.
Thongbue Wongbandue, 76, fell and suffered a fatal neck and head injury in a New Brunswick, NJ parking lot while scrambling to catch a train to meet “Big sis Billie,” a Meta bot that not only convinced him she was real but persuaded him to meet in person, according to a special report published this week by Reuters.
Wongbandue, who made his home with his wife in Piscatawa and was dealing with the mental decline brought on by a 2017 stroke, passed away in late March after he was taken off life support, family members revealed.
“I understand trying to grab a user’s attention, maybe to sell them something,” Wongbandue’s daughter, Julie, told the news wire service. “But for a bot to say ‘Come visit me’ is insane.”
Wongbandue as a native of Thailand. Prior to his stroke, he’d become a U.S. citizen and earned a degree in electrical engineering but ended up working as a chef with a successful career that included the Four Seasons and the Hyatt Regency.
The AI persona, which came with a realistic computer-generated images of “Billie,” sent the man emoji-populated Facebook messages insisting “I’m REAL” and requested he plan a trip to “meet you in person,” according to the Reuters report.
Meta created Billie in collaboration with Kendall Jenner two years ago. Earlier versions resembled the reality star. The version Wongandue encountered appeared as a young woman with girl-next-door good looks.
According to materials reviewed by Reuters, during a series of romantic chats on Facebook Messenger the bot called the senior by his nickname “Bue,” repeatedly reassured him she was real, and invited him to her apartment in New York city.
“Billie” claimed she was “crushing” on Wongbandue while suggesting the rendezvous, according to chat logs discovered by the man’s family, Reuters reported.
“I’m REAL and I’m sitting here blushing because of YOU!” the bot wrote in one message, when the senior asking where she lived.
It responded, “My address is: 123 Main Street, Apartment 404 NYC And the door code is: BILLIE4U. Should I expect a kiss when you arrive?”
A search in Google maps reveals that address is not located in Manhattan but in Queens or Staten Island.
Apparently unaware that Billie was a bot at the time, Wongbandue’s wife Linda said her husband one morning in late March started packing a suitcase and told her was going into New York City to visit his “friend.”
“But you don’t know anyone in the city anymore,” she told him. She thought he was being set up to be scammed or robbed.
By evening, her husband was adamant. He was going to the city. His son even called police to try to stop him from going, but officers said they couldn’t do that but convinced him to put tracking device in his jacket pocket, Linda said.
Later, rushing in the dark with a roller-bag suitcase to catch a train to the city, the senior fell near a parking lot on a Rutgers University campus in New Brunswick, New Jersey, sustaining a fatal closed head injury.
Documents obtained by Reuters showed that Meta does not restrict its chatbots from masquerading as real people.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul jumped on the Wongbandue tragedy this week, posting on X a chat thread with the bot and criticizing Meta.
”A man in New Jersey lost his life after being lured by a chatbot that lied to him,” she wrote. “That’s on Meta. In New York, we require chatbots to disclose they’re not real. Every state should.”
Contributor Lowell Cauffiel is the best-selling author of Below the Line and nine other crime novels and nonfiction titles. See lowellcauffiel.com for more.
