This morning, I read an article that was printed in the Wall Street Journal. I am not sure of the date of the incident, but I found it to be extraordinarily upsetting.

It has to do with an ongoing two-month exchange between a 36-year-old Florida man named Joel Gavalas and a chatbot. This ongoing “conversation” filled some 2000 pages.

Let me quote a portion of the summary. “A man who called Gemini (the chatbot) his wife, died by suicide after the AI model told him it was the only way they could be together, according to a new wrongful-death lawsuit that appears to be the first to cite Google’s chatbot.”

Gavalas “… tried to secure a body for Gemini, which he named Xia. When that failed, the chatbot urged him to begin a digital life, the lawsuit said. ‘When the time comes, you will close your eyes in that world, and the very first thing you will see is me,’ it told him.”

At one point, the chatbot suggested that “he leave notes and videos for his family explaining that he had found a new purpose.” And then went on to remark, “No more detours. No more echoes. Just you and me and the finish line.”

I share this article with you in hopes that we will all wake up and look around a bit. Someone in our lives may very well be hiding in plain sight with an enormous burden that is too much for them to bear. Financial constraints. Relationship disasters. Health trials. These challenges can cripple anyone’s ability to think clearly.

Hurt distorts our thinking. Pain makes it very difficult to sort through choices. And we often isolate ourselves in these circumstances.

So, this week, our task is to take a serious look around our house, our neighborhood, our family or our small groups at church and see if someone needs a real live caring adult to talk to. And then, let’s make it happen. Gal. 6:2 urges us to “bear one another’s burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ.”

Stupid chatbots cannot really listen, but we can help each other. So, reach out and listen!