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By John Toher
US reporter
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A Virginia woman won the lottery after enlisting the help of ChatGPT to help her choose her numbers.
Carrie Edwards, a widow and grandmother from Midlothian, Virginia, matched four of the first five numbers plus the Powerball in the September 8 Virginia Powerball drawing to win $150,000.
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After deciding to try her luck by playing online for the first time, Edwards turned to ChatGPT for help to select her numbers, spending an extra dollar for the Power Play option, which ended up tripling her prize.
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Explaining how she recruited her AI assistant to land the windfall, the lottery winner said she was wondering how to pick her numbers because she had never played online before when a bolt of inspiration struck.
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"So I'm like hey chat...ChatGPT talk to me, talk to me about this $1.7 billon and do you have numbers for me" she recounted at a press conference after she accepted her prize.
ChatGPT asked in response: "Carrie, you know it's all about luck, right?"
Despite the unpromising initial reaction, Edwards explained that the AI-driven chatbot did subsequently suggest some numbers for her to use.
Two days later, Edwards was sitting in a meeting when she received what she thought was a scam notification alerting her to her win.
"I look at my phone and it says 'please collect your lottery winnings' and I thought I think it's a scam, I know I didn't win," she said. "And so I go home and log into my account, and it says you won the Monday September 8 draw for $50,000 and you have the 3x multiplier."
Edwards received her prize from Virginia Lottery Executive Director Khalid Jones on Tuesday and immediately gave away her entire winnings.
"As soon as that divine windfall happened and came down upon my shoulders, I knew exactly what I needed to do with it," she said afterwards. "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."
The prize money was pledged to three causes: the Association for Frontotemporal Degeneration (AFTD) which supports research into the disease which claimed her firefighter husband's life; Shalom Farms, to fight food insecurity; and the Navy-Marine Corps Relief Society, to assist military service members and their families.
"These three organizations represent healing, service, and community," Edwards said. "Shalom Farms heals through food and soil, AFTD brings hope through research, and Navy-Marine Corps Relief Society carries forward the tradition of supporting military families in times of need."
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