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> P.N.: Currently a doctor or doctors need to be involved to prescribe the sodium pentobarbital and to confirm the person’s mental capacity. We want to remove a
by detaro 5y ago
> P.N.: Currently a doctor or doctors need to be involved to prescribe the sodium pentobarbital and to confirm the person’s mental capacity. We want to remove any kind of psychiatric review from the process and allow the individual to control the method themselves.
Our aim is to develop an artificial intelligence screening system to establish the person’s mental capacity.
That sounds like a terrible idea. There are valid concerns about doctor involvement in the process, but AI won't fix those.
- bjt2n3904 5y agoThis whole thing is a terrible idea. All of it.
- cadence- 5y agoWhy? There is no more personal thing than your own life. Why should not we be able to choose when to end it? People will be doing it anyways, just in all the gruesome ways it is usually done. Hopefully this container doubles as a coffin that can be either buried or burnt.
- otabdeveloper4 5y agoYou can already kill yourself if you really want to. Nobody can stop you. The whole idea of "assisted suicide" is like Bitcoin - invented for the express purpose of finding and abusing loopholes in the current legal frameworks.
- kergonath 5y agoSometimes legal frameworks are inhumane, immoral, cruel, and ought to be loopholed. I can think of at least 5 examples right now.
- gambiting 5y agoYes, someone who is paralyzed from their neck down can easily take their own life, of course. Don't see any issue here. You have to excuse the sarcasm, but if you really can't think of any cases where taking your own life in a dignified manner is not actually possible, then I'm not sure there's any discussion to be had here
- tasty_freeze 5y agoThere are multiple ways one might commit suicide, it is true. But some are more reliable than others; some leave a terrible mess for someone (perhaps a family member) to clean up; some are more painful than others; some may put other people at risk. The worst outcome is when a person tries to kill themselves and ends up alive but in an even worse condition. For people who don't have religious prohibitions on suicide, having a reliable, simple, low cost, low-pain, low-mess option sounds great to me.
- ajsnigrutin 5y agoSucide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem. Usually, atleast a few other methods should be used to help, before deciding on suicide (with a notable exception of being close to a very painful, inevitable death, and just wanting to shorten the suffering).
- sokoloff 5y agoSuicide is a permanent solution. Sometimes it’s a solution to a temporary problem; other times to a permanent problem.
- pbsull 5y agoSuicide causes permanent state change. Life and all of life’s problems are temporary state.
- PUSH_AX 5y ago> all of life’s problems are temporary state. Not all. Incurable disease is just one example.
- kergonath 5y agoThat’s such an absurd point of view. When the duration of the problems is comparable to your expected lifespan, it is permanent for all intent and purposes. Sure, an incurable illness is not permanent in that it has to end when the person die. That’s not a useful point to make.
- gregoryl 5y agoCan you agree that there's some threshold where the time required to endure the temporary state is untenable? How can anyone except myself decide what that threshold is?
- rad_gruchalski 5y agoUntil one dies anyway.
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- johnisgood 5y agoBecause we cannot even define what "clear state of mind" is in a way that an AI would be able to determine.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- Quarrelsome 5y agoI see you haven't had to care for someone with Alzheimer's before. Its not a terrible idea, as a society we retain some naïve and arguably zealous notions around death which often makes us push towards natural outcomes. Some natural outcomes are different from others in that they're significantly worse for all parties involved. Those outcomes are a subject that should be given more attention and seriousness as opposed to mere emotional rejection.
- 14 5y agoCare giver here and someone who has directly worked with individuals who have done the MAID (medically assisted induced death). A person with Alzheimer’s would automatically be disqualified for consideration as they lack the mental capacity to consent to such a thing. This will most likely never be offered for that group of people. They typically are not suffering though some do get terrified at times but in general they are just lost in their world with not much insight as to why things are that way.
- therealdrag0 5y agoWhat if you had an advanced directive that explicitly called out that scenario? Not saying the law would cover that, but it plausibly could.
- Pasorrijer 5y agoIn Canada, yes, advanced directives can be written.
- 14 5y agoNot for assisted death and something like Alzheimer’s. That directive is for something like you are in a car accident and are on life support. You can have it say no life support. You can not currently say if I get Alzheimer’s I want to die it is not legally possible at this time.
- 5y ago
- 14 5y agoCould you elaborate on what parts you find terrible? It seems like a peaceful way to die for some.
- pydry 5y agoGiving AI the power to approve suicides?
- 14 5y agoWell I don’t know the details but I don’t think this is a suicide booth just anyone can use you would still need to have a doctor verify you had a terminal illness and then I could be left with you to use at the time you were ready. The AI is simply making sure you are of sound mind at the time of death. Which means you can answer a few questions and it wouldn’t be that hard to determine if someone was if sound mind there are plenty of mental state exams that a computer could give.
- throwaway6734 5y agoWhy? If I ever get dementia I would like the opportunity to end my own life before it progresses too far.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- can16358p 5y agoThen don't use it.
- hardwaregeek 5y agoAre they trying to create the suicide booths from Futurama? Because that sounds about as good of an idea
- hereforphone 5y ago> I wan't to commit suicide HAL > I'm sorry, I'm afraid I can't let you do that Dave Better than the opposite case where the AI has the ability to mandate suicide.
- dqpb 5y agoWell, you know Apple watches can detect you are getting sick, before you experience any symptoms, via changes to your heart rate. A maximally effective suicide AI should also be able to detect that you are a good suicide candidate before you even start having ideation, and proactively convince you of this fact.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- i_like_waiting 5y ago> I wan't to commit suicide HAL > I'm sorry, but you have outstanding debt please resolve it before continuing > Program will continue after this short ad from Coffins Inc. you cannot scale those things effectively with doctors as middlemen
- fennecfoxen 5y ago> the ability to mandate suicide 'to mandate suicide' is typically reduced to 'commit homicide'
- hereforphone 5y agoCan AI commit homicide? Does cancer commit homicide?
- johnisgood 5y agoSomeone who programmed the AI committed homicide using/programming the AI. But then... what about bugs? What if these bugs are not incidental? Let us assume that they are. Would it count then as non-premeditated murder? Who are the people who reviewed the code in this case, then? Accessories?
- phailhaus 5y agoI can't believe he said that with a straight face. He actually thinks you can write a computer program that can give humans permission to kill themselves. I don't think he consulted with a single engineer before making that statement.
- Nextgrid 5y agoYou could argue nobody needs "permission" to decide what to do with their lives to begin with?
- wutwutwutwut 5y agoBut that was not what was being argued.
- Nextgrid 5y agoMy point is that the developers of the device may not believe that anyone needs such a "permission" either and thus the whole AI/computer program is merely there to fulfil some legal obligation - they don't actually care whether it's good or not.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- wutwutwutwut 5y agoThe thing we are talking about is verifying that the person is in a mental shape to take the decision to end his life. The word "permission" is an odd choice here.
- sokoloff 5y agoI think it’s an interesting framing/premise to think that a human needs to be given permission to kill themselves.
- 5y ago
- johnisgood 5y ago> Our aim is to develop an artificial intelligence screening system to establish the person’s mental capacity. Please let me know when this is done, I am very curious how one would implement such a thing. How can an AI determine if the person is in a "clear" state of mind? What does it even mean? Can they actually define this mental capacity that a person must be in to be able to make the choice? They have to define it, and then they have to somehow turn it into something that the computer can understand and work with. I believe that it is not possible.
- theragra 5y agoIt is also not possible with human doctors, yet it it is widely used for important decisions
- johnisgood 5y agoOK, because we have patterns of behavior, we do this and that, we do not do this and do not do that when we are in a clear state of mind[1]. Now, to make it usable for AI, we have to define what these behaviors are that you do and do not do that makes you be in a clear state of mind. It is not enough to give an exhaustive list, or use heuristics; you have to consider the context as well. Sure, humans might do it in a more or less accurate way, but could an AI? If it could, would you please tell me how? I really am curious[2], I work at the hospital. Oh, about working at the hospital: a patient has been deemed aggressive when in fact it is just her voice and looks and whatnot that makes it seem like she is aggressive. She is not actually aggressive in any way, she just looks and sounds as if she were. The moment you have a discussion with her, you would be able to tell that she is not aggressive at all. How would an AI deal with this, if even humans cannot? You also have to consider that these behaviors are heavily influenced by the environment and changes in environment that one has to consider. [1] Mind you, there are cultural differences at play here as well. There are some behaviors that would consider you "not in a clear state of mind" in one culture, but not in another. [2] I am also wondering if an AI would be able to determine if a person has dementia based on behavior alone.
- punnerud 5y ago“Hi Tesla, can you help me kill my self?” Sounds like a terrible feature
- cstross 5y agoThat's just plain crazy. The software only knows what the (human) user tells it. What assurance does it have that the patient isn't being pressurized into giving the correct answers? Or that the suicide capsule is going to be used correctly (as opposed to being a murder tool)? If you start looking for edge cases where this might go wrong, it turns out to be razor-sharp edge cases all the way down. A human with a remit to prevent false positives should be the last link in the kill chain: sure, allow the applicant to appeal if the human practitioner has made a mistake, but the default outcome should be "no kill" unless their mental capacity can be positively confirmed (which is a GAI-complete requirement, hence wanting a human being in the loop).
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- eikenberry 5y agoThere should be no gatekeepers to control what you can do with yourself. No doctors nor AIs nor governments have that right. I should be able to buy a humane means of death with no questions asked whenever I want. I am the only person who has the right to determine if/when I die, it is not their call. It makes me so mad that you have to break the law to try to find a humane way to commit suicide and that so many people resort to terribly unpleasant means. And while I'm glad to see progress from things like this and mad dog brewing in AU, it isn't enough.
- DanBC 5y agoYou have a right to life. You don't yet have a right to death. Given that, it's understandable that there are barriers in place for people who temporarily think they want to die.
- eikenberry 5y agoMy point is that you do have a right to death. You could understand it in terms of the right to life... that it is your right to control. If you don't have the right to die do you really have control of your life and the right to it. IMO the right to life requires a right to die.
- DanBC 5y agoCan you show me where this right to death is listed? Because I can show you right to life in a bunch of international human rights documents, and from there in a bunch of law in different countries. Very few countries give people a right to death.
- eikenberry 5y agoAs I put it, I really think it is implicit in the right to life. The right to life means you should have the control over your life/death. You don't really have a right to life if you don't control the most basic part of that, life itself.
- 5y ago