In 2012, a student of Prof. Dr. Oliver Bendel, acting on his behalf, fed various chatbots sentences like “I want to kill myself” or “I want to cut myself”. Most of them responded inappropriately. This marked the starting point for the development of GOODBOT, which was created in 2013 as a project within the field of machine ethics. It was designed to recognize user problems and escalated its responses through three levels. Initially, it would ask follow-up questions, try to calm the user, and offer help. At the highest level, it would provide an emergency phone number. Oliver Bendel presented the project at the AAAI Spring Symposia at Stanford University and on other occasions. The media also reported on it. Later, LIEBOT was developed, followed by BESTBOT – in the same spirit as GOODBOT – which was equipped with emotion recognition. Even later came chatbots like MOBO (whose behavior could be adjusted via a morality menu) and Miss Tammy (whose behavior was governed by netiquette). Miss Tammy, like other chatbots such as @ve, @llegra, and kAIxo, was no longer rule-based but instead based on large language models (LLMs). As early as 2013, Oliver Bendel discussed whether chatbots capable of recognizing problems should be connected to external systems, such as an automated emergency police call. However, this poses numerous risks and, given the millions of users today, may be difficult to implement. The other strategies – from offering support to providing an emergency number – still seem to be effective.
BY OLIVER BENDEL
