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I 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
by phailhaus 5y ago
I 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.
- gnull 5y ago“Permission” was just a bad way to put it. I'm sure what they are actually talking about is making sure that the person is making the decision in clear mind and not under the effect of drugs, strong temporal emotions and is not being forced by someone to do this.
- diognesofsinope 5y ago> strong temporal emotions Well said. As Jim Jefferies said in his gun control bit referencing suicide -- 'We all have bad days.'
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- 5e92cb50239222b 5y ago> strong temporal emotions That's a pretty loaded statement. You're probably thinking of those ostentatious fools who end up in the news like "man was prevented from jumping off the bridge". Not every suicide does it on a whim, some think about that decision for many years.
- detaro 5y agoyes, that's the point, making the distinction between those two? How is that a loaded statement?
- mortehu 5y agoAs a general trend, when you make effective suicide less convenient, e.g. switching from lethal gas to carbon monoxide free natural gas in ovens, they happen less often. Not necessarily because of fewer attempts though. https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/means-matter/means-matter/saves-lives/ https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/means-matter/means-matter/saves...
- thisiswater 5y agoYes, but the vast majority of people who survive a suicide attempt do not go on to die by suicide.
- tomjen3 5y agoAs an Engineer, I wouldn't necessarily be against it if it made EOL decisions more available to humans. I would prefer no program at all, and just have a waiting period of 14 days to nullify those who insist that all suicidal thoughts are just spur of the moment things. But given access to data and an appeals process for those it turned down, I would be morally okay with writing the software. We let parents have as many children as they want, why shouldn't those children get to say if the life they have is worth living?
- xupybd 5y agoI have found depression can last much longer than 14 days.
- logifail 5y ago> I would prefer no program at all, and just have a waiting period of 14 days to nullify those who insist that all suicidal thoughts are just spur of the moment things I've not posted about this before, for a variety of reasons: A close family friend of mine - in his mid 20s - took his own life a week or so before Christmas a couple of years ago. I was with him and his father in a pub the evening before, he was telling jokes and buying drinks, he was dead a few hours later. Unfortunately taking your own life doesn't have a cooling-off period :(
- tsuujin 5y ago> The second turned out not to be aesthetically pleasing. For that and various other reasons it’s not the best one to use. Also on the list of concerning statements. Why do I get the feeling that “various other reasons” play a bit of a more important role than he’s letting on there?
- bryanrasmussen 5y agoat that level you talk to the salespeople, not the engineers.
- actually_a_dog 5y agoNor did they consult with an ethicist, clearly.
- mongol 5y agoEthical AI, anyone?
- oneepic 5y agoWhile it's not in the article, I could see them adding some in-person contact (ie interview/screen with a human, but not a doctor) to get a rough idea of the person. Not just accept or deny them 100% according to the AI.
- cyanydeez 5y agojust to be clear, what exactly is the epistomological basis against sucide.
- zdragnar 5y agoMost hold that life has value, and the desire to continue living t9 be axiomatic. There are very few cases where suicide may be considered a rational choice, and in those cases it is difficult to determine that the choice was made of their own free will, and not pressured into it by lazy family, doctors or government (dictating available treatments, providing appropriate pallative care, etc).
- drivingmenuts 5y agoWouldn’t the desire to die be proof that the desire to live is not axiomatic?
- zdragnar 5y agoIIF you hold the desire to die to be rational. I can believe that 2 + 2 = 5, but it doesn't. The desire to die may be derived not from an actual desire, but an expression of mental or physical illness which could be treated in such a way that I (rationally) do not desire to die (right now). Whether there are valid exceptions or mere failures of treatment is what most people are inclined to debate (plus the difficulty in discerning rational consent, free of pressure or other external failures).
- cyanydeez 5y agohold whose life valueable to who. the very consent required for life doesnt exist. people dont consent to being alive. holding someone who feels suffering alive would be considered torture. when you strip away the selfishness that is keeping others alive, suicide might be the only truly zelfless act. i do not think you need a complicated ai to allow a suicide machine. you treat it as you would the way we sane people regulate guns. cool down periods, background checks and coercion checks.
- 5y ago
- timwaagh 5y agoA Dutch engineer maybe. The views on this topic are so extreme in my country i find it a bit creepy. I'm sure everyone involved thinks people should be able to die at the touch of a button. The rest is just there for compliance reasons.
- A4ET8a8uTh0 5y agoI will add more to this. What is really fascinating is the idea 'ai' has been so successfully sold as a solution to just about any problem out there. I am genuinely trying not to just not add 'using novel blockchain protocol for full transparency' ( while naturally keeping all transparency out from the ai blackbox ). We live in a weird time leg.
- kqr 5y agoNot so fast. Meehl (1989) is the obvious reference here: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=meehl+actuarial+vs+clinical&btnG=#d=gs_qabs&u=%23p%3D7ySwaf-D2KkJ https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=meeh... But going beyond that, Kahneman in his latest book summarises the recent research in the area as such: - Simple linear models generally outperform experts. - Simple linear models generally outperform experts when the experts get additional information to base their decisions on, that the model does not get. - Simple linear models generally outperform experts when the experts get to know and use the outcome of the linear model. - Simple linear models trained only on an expert's judgments and not the actual outcome outperform the very expert they were trained on. - Simple linear models with random weights (!) outperform experts. - Simple linear models with equal weights (i.e. transform the predictors to the same scale and then just sum them) outperform experts. - Simple linear models with equal weights and almost all predictors removed except the best 1--3 outperform experts.
- phailhaus 5y ago> Simple linear models generally outperform experts At what? At correctly diagnosing patients or predicting prognosis once an issue has already been identified, as in Meehl's paper? That is not the same thing as determining whether a patient has the "mental capacity" to commit suicide.
- kqr 5y agoAt correctly diagnosing patients, too -- at least for some ailments. The common objection against this evidence is "sure, it happened to work there, but it won't work in this case!" And of course, it's very hard to defend this research against an accusation like that. However, it's been a remarkable stable result whenever it is tried for a new task, so I guess what I'm saying is that I like to stay open to simple algorithms making better decisions than humans. Not because the algorithms are good (linear models with random weights are not very good) but because humans are incredibly fallible.