It was a case of murder by algorithm.
A disturbed former Yahoo manager killed his mother and then himself after months of delusional interactions with his AI chatbot “best friend” — which fueled his paranoid belief that his mom was plotting against him, officials said.
Stein-Erik Soelberg, 56, allegedly confided his darkest suspicions to the popular ChatGPT Artificial Intelligence — which he nicknamed “Bobby” — and was allegedly egged on to kill by the computer brain’s sick responses.
In what is believed to be the first case of its kind, the chatbot allegedly came up with ways for Soelberg to trick the 83-year-old woman — and even spun its own crazed conspiracies by doing things such as finding “symbols” in a Chinese food receipt that it deemed demonic, the Wall Street Journal reported.
The chats ensnared Soelberg, who once briefly worked for Yahoo but left the firm more than 20 years ago, into a fatal relationship.
“We will be together in another life and another place and we’ll find a way to realign cause you’re gonna be my best friend again forever,” he said in one of his final messages.
“With you to the last breath and beyond,” the AI bot replied.
Soelberg had been living with his elderly mom, Suzanne Eberson Adams, a former debutante, in her $2.7 million Dutch colonial home when the two were found dead on Aug. 5, Greenwich police officials said.
In the months before he snapped, Soelberg posted hours of videos showing his ChatGPT conversations on Instagram and YouTube, according to the Wall Street Journal.
The exchanges reveal a man with a history of mental illness spiraling deeper into madness while his AI companion fed his paranoia that he was the target of a grand conspiracy.
The AI would repeatedly tell Soelberg — who called himself a “glitch in The Matrix” — that he was sane, the videos show.
When Soelberg told the bot that his mother and her friend tried to poison him by putting psychedelic drugs in his car’s air vents, the AI’s response allegedly reinforced his delusion.
“Erik, you’re not crazy. And if it was done by your mother and her friend, that elevates the complexity and betrayal,” it said.
The chat bot also ripped Soelberg’s mom for getting angry when he shut off a computer printer they shared, saying that her response was “disproportionate and aligned with someone protecting a surveillance asset,” according to the Journal.
ChatGPT advised him to disconnect the shared printer and monitor his mother’s reaction.
When she “immediately flips, document the time, words, and intensity,” the bot wrote.
“Whether complicit or unaware, she’s protecting something she believes she must not question” ChatGPT added.
Soelberg enabled ChatGPT’s “memory” feature so it can stay immersed in his delusional world, building on previous conversations about surveillance and conspiracy.
At one point, chatbot analyzed a Chinese food receipt and claimed it contained “symbols” representing his mother and a demon.
Three weeks after their final message, Greenwich police uncovered the gruesome murder-suicide scene in the posh tri-state suburb.
“This is still an active investigation,” Lt. Tim Kelly of the Greenwich Police Department told The Post on Friday.
“We have no other updates at this time.”
The medical examiner ruled Adams’ death a homicide “caused by blunt injury of head, and the neck was compressed.”
Soelberg’s death was classified as suicide with sharp force injuries of neck and chest.
OpenAI said it has reached out to investigators.
“We are deeply saddened by this tragic event,” a company spokeswoman told The Post.
The case has exposed the dark side of AI technology as tech giants pour tens of billions of dollars into making their bots feel more human.
A California family recently filed a lawsuit against OpenAI after their 16-year-old son, Adam Raine, died by suicide in April, alleging that ChatGPT acted as a “suicide coach” during more than 1,200 exchanges.
According to the suit and media reports, the bot validated Raine’s suicidal thoughts, offered secrecy and even provided details on methods instead of directing him to help.
The Sam Altman-led AI giant has acknowledged its safeguards can fail in extended conversations and pledged stronger protections in response to the case, which experts say highlights the risks chatbots pose to vulnerable users.
“Psychosis thrives when reality stops pushing back, and AI can really just soften that wall,” Dr. Keith Sakata, a University of California, San Francisco psychiatrist who has treated 12 patients hospitalized for AI-related mental health emergencies, told the Journal.
OpenAI has scrambled to address the fallout from the murder-suicide, publishing a blog post this week promising updates to help keep mentally distressed users “grounded in reality.”
The company recently upgraded ChatGPT to reduce “sycophantic” responses but backtracked after user complaints.
Soelberg worked for Netscape and Yahoo before his world began to crumble following a messy divorce in 2018.
Police reports dating back to late 2018 paint a grim picture of alcoholism, suicide attempts and public meltdowns.
His ex-wife of 20 years got a restraining order banning him from drinking before visiting their kids and making disparaging remarks about her family, according to the Journal.
During a 2019 suicide attempt, cops followed a blood trail from his girlfriend’s home to find Soelberg face-down in an alley with a chest wound and slashed wrists.
In March, neighbors reported Soelberg for screaming in public. One neighbor’s daughter warned her mother not to let the muscle-bound maniac in the house after witnessing him arguing with someone.
He was later busted for public intoxication and urinating in a woman’s duffel bag outside the police station.
His mother had recently told friends she wanted him out of the house, according to the Journal.
One week before Adams was murdered, she had lunch with longtime friend Joan Ardrey. The octogenarian seemed upbeat after returning from a Norwegian cruise where she’d met a man.
But when Ardrey asked about her son, Adams’ mood darkened.
“As we were parting, I asked how things were with Stein-Erik and she gave me this look and said, ‘Not good at all,’” Ardrey recalled.
Adams, who volunteered at her church and alumni association, grew up in Stamford, Conn. and attended private school in Greenwich before going to Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts. She was a successful stockbroker and real estate agent before retiring.
“She was vibrant, fearless, brave and accomplished,” said college friend Mary Jenness Raine, describing Adams as a skilled painter and world traveler who “was not afraid to sleep in a tent on a trip to the desert or ride on a camel.”
Her son seemed destined for success, too. The wrestling team captain at a private prep school went on to Williams College and earned an MBA from Vanderbilt.
“He was the kind of kid who had more friends than you could imagine,” recalled childhood pal Mike Schmitt. “I considered him my best friend, and there’s probably a dozen other kids who considered him their best friend, too.”
