In the growing digital era, artificial intelligence has been credited with numerous accomplishments, from writing essays to diagnosing illnesses. Now, it has also helped a woman in the United States win a lottery.
Carrie Edwards, a resident of Midlothian, Virginia, won big in the September 8 Virginia Lottery Powerball drawing after turning to ChatGPT for help in choosing numbers. The AI-picked numbers matched four of the first five numbers plus the Powerball, giving her a prize of $50,000.
Since Edwards had opted to pay an extra dollar for the Power Play option, her winnings tripled to $150,000 (around Rs 1.32 crore), the New York Post reported.
Edwards said she casually asked ChatGPT to “talk to me” and provide numbers when she purchased her ticket.
“I’m like, ChatGPT, talk to me… Do you have numbers for me?” she recalled during a press conference.
Two days later, Edwards was sitting in a meeting when a notification on her phone stopped her in her tracks: “Please collect your lottery winnings.”
At first, she thought it was a scam. “I thought, ‘I know I didn’t win,’” she said. But after verifying the news, she was in for a life-changing surprise.
Edwards To Donate Prize Money
However, the woman pledged the entire $150,000 to donate to three charitable causes. she said that she will donate the money to the Association for Frontotemporal Degeneration (AFTD) to support research into the disease that killed her husband, Shalom Farms to combat food insecurity, and the Navy-Marine Corps Relief Society to help military service members and their families.
“As soon as that divine windfall happened and came down upon my shoulders, I knew exactly what I needed to do with it. And I knew I needed to give it all away, because I’ve been so blessed, and I want this to be an example of how other people, when they’re blessed, can bless other people,” she said.
While announcing the donation, she emphasised how blessed she felt to be in a position to help others, the report added.
