Andrew Hastie says AI advised him to reply ‘congratulations!’ to man who planned to end life with assisted dying
TL;DR
Australian Liberal MP Andrew Hastie told a parliamentary inquiry that Microsoft Copilot suggested he reply “congratulations! ” or “that is wonderful news! ” to a terminally ill constituent who had written that he planned to end his life through voluntary assisted dying. Hastie used the episode to highlight the shortcomings of US-run AI software and called for AI run by Australians.
Nauti's Take
The case exposes a real problem: a writing assistant without context can badly misread tone when someone's life situation is what matters. It is also an opportunity to build better guardrails, since sensitive topics like death, illness or crisis can be detected and handled separately.
Anyone using Copilot or similar tools for constituent or customer messages should never send suggested replies to delicate emails unchecked.
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