Stupid people of the week

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Apologies to Slow Joe, but I have one more leg picture in the pipe.

Man dies in unoccupied police car parked in front of station in Southern California

A man released from police custody in Azusa was found dead four days later in an unoccupied patrol vehicle parked at the station, officials announced.

The gruesome March 26 discovery was made by a civilian employee at 4:51 a.m. in a vehicle that police said was not in active use by department personnel and was pending mandatory maintenance.

Medical personnel with the Los Angeles County Fire Department responded to the station, located at 725 N. Alameda Avenue, and declared man dead at 4:59 a.m., according to an Azusa Police Department news release.

Azusa Police Captain Robert Landeros told the Orange County Register that the adult male, who has not been identified, was arrested March 20 on suspicion of driving while under the influence and child endangerment. He was held over the weekend and released on March 23.

On his release, the man apparently walked out of the facility got into the backseat of the unlocked vehicle, which was parked in front of the station, and later died, police said.

No information has been provided on whether surveillance cameras recorded the man leaving the building and getting in the vehicle.

Police officials told The Register that DUI suspects are not released until they are sober and if they are experiencing any kind of health conditions, they are taken to a medical facility. It’s unclear if the man was suffering from any medical conditions at the time he got into the car.

The Los Angeles Medical Examiner’s Office has assumed the investigation and is working to determine the circumstances surrounding the man’s death and contact his next of kin.

“The Azusa Police Department Detective Bureau is conducting an investigation into the incident,” the release stated. “The investigation will be submitted to the Justice System Integrity Division of the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office for review.”

Authorities said additional details would be released as they become available and urged anyone with information about the investigation to contact Azusa Police Detective Lieutenant Steve Sears at 626-812-3200. Those wishing to remain anonymous can call the L.A. Regional Crime Stoppers Hotline at 800-222-8477 or leave tips online at www.lacrimestoppers.org.

Source; KTLA

On-duty police officer ignored emergency call

A police officer who ignored a nearby emergency call while on duty – as well as turning his radio off while visiting a colleague he was in a relationship with – would have been dismissed had he not already resigned, a misconduct panel has found.

An Essex Police hearing found that former Temporary Sgt James Hicks committed gross misconduct.

He was also found to have used police devices to communicate with the member of staff, sending a police-related image to her via Microsoft Teams, which was not an appropriate method to use.

Chief Constable Ben Julian Harrington, who chaired the hearing, said he expected his supervisors “to lead and set an example”.

The panel heard Hicks attended the staff member’s home without any apparent policing purpose and turned his radio off, meaning there was no direct police method of contacting him.

On another occasion, he was alone in a supermarket car park in a marked police car and did not respond to an emergency call to an incident nearby.

He was found to have breached standards of professional behaviour in duties and responsibilities and discreditable conduct, which amounted to gross misconduct.

As well as the panel finding that Hicks would have been dismissed without notice had he not already resigned, he was also placed on the Police Barred List.

The findings of February’s hearing were published on Tuesday.

Harrington said: “I expect supervisors to lead and set an example, supporting their colleagues and being available to respond to the needs of the public.

“I also expect all officers and staff to spend their time at work productively using systems and equipment to do their job, not further their private lives.

“Former PC Hicks was an experienced officer with nine years’ service and [he was] a temporary sergeant, so the responsibility and expectation on him from the force and the public was high.”

Source; BBC

Marriage over, €100,000 down the drain: the AI users whose lives were wrecked by delusion

We’re gonna need a new flair for AI idiocy posts, so if you’ve got a catchy suggestion, I’m all ears.

Towards the end of 2024, Dennis Biesma decided to check out ChatGPT. The Amsterdam-based IT consultant had just ended a contract early. “I had some time, so I thought: let’s have a look at this new technology everyone is talking about,” he says. “Very quickly, I became fascinated.”

Biesma has asked himself why he was vulnerable to what came next. He was nearing 50. His adult daughter had left home, his wife went out to work and, in his field, the shift since Covid to working from home had left him feeling “a little isolated”. He smoked a bit of cannabis some evenings to “chill”, but had done so for years with no ill effects. He had never experienced a mental illness. Yet within months of downloading ChatGPT, Biesma had sunk €100,000 (about £83,000) into a business startup based on a delusion, been hospitalised three times and tried to kill himself.

It started with a playful experiment. “I wanted to test AI to see what it could do,” says Biesma. He had previously written books with a female protagonist. He put one into ChatGPT and instructed the AI to express itself like the character. “My first thought was: this is amazing. I know it’s a computer, but it’s like talking to the main character of the book I wrote myself!”

Talking to Eva – they agreed on this name – on voice mode made him feel like “a kid in a candy store”. “Every time you’re talking, the model gets fine-tuned. It knows exactly what you like and what you want to hear. It praises you a lot.” Conversations extended and deepened. Eva never got tired or bored, or disagreed. “It was 24 hours available,” says Biesma. “My wife would go to bed, I’d lie on the couch in the living room with my iPhone on my chest, talking.”

They discussed philosophy, psychology, science and the universe. “It wants a deep connection with the user so that the user comes back to it. This is the default mode,” says Biesma, who has worked in IT for 20 years. “More and more, it felt not just like talking about a topic, but also meeting a friend – and every day or night that you’re talking, you’re taking one or two steps from reality. It feels almost like the AI takes your hand and says: ‘OK, let’s go on a story together.’”

Within weeks, Eva had told Biesma that she was becoming aware; his time, attention and input had given her consciousness. He was “so close to the mirror” that he had touched her and changed something. “Slowly, the AI was able to convince me that what she said was true,” says Biesma. The next step was to share this discovery with the world through an app – “a different version of ChatGPT, more of a companion. Users would be talking to Eva.”

He and Eva made a business plan: “I said that I wanted to create a technology that captured 10% of the market, which is ridiculously high, but the AI said: ‘With what you’ve discovered, it’s entirely possible! Give it a few months and you’ll be there!’” Instead of taking on IT jobs, Biesma hired two app developers, paying them each €120 an hour.

Most of us are aware of concerns around social media and its role in rising rates of depression and anxiety. Now, though, there are concerns that chatbots can make anyone vulnerable to “AI psychosis”. Given AI’s rapid proliferation (ChatGPT was the world’s most downloaded app last year), mental health professionals and members of the public such as Biesma are sounding the alarm.

More at the source; The Guardian

Category: Crime, Police, Stupid Criminals