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idk dude if your technology encourages a teenager to kill itself and prevents him from alerting his parents via a cry for help, I don’t care how “beneficial” it

idk dude if your technology encourages a teenager to kill itself and prevents him from alerting his parents via a cry for help, I don’t care how “beneficial” it is.

MBCook 1y ago
I agree. If there was one death for 1 million saves, maybe. Instead, this just came up in my feed: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/08/chatgpt-helped-teen-plan-suicide-after-safeguards-failed-openai-admits/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/08/chatgpt-helped-t...
- rideontime 1y ago
  This is the same case that is being discussed, and your comment up-thread does not demonstrate awareness that you are, in fact, agreeing with the parent comment that you replied to. I get the impression that you read only the headline, not the article, and assumed it was a story about someone using ChatGPT for therapy and gaining a positive outcome.
  - MBCook 1y ago
    I did! Because I can’t see past the paywall. I can’t even read the first paragraph. So the headline is the only context I have.
    - rideontime 1y ago
      I would advise you to gather more context before commenting in the future.
    - latexr 1y ago
      A link to bypass the paywall has been posted several hours before your comment, and currently sits at the top. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45027043 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45027043 I recommend you get in the habit of searching for those. They are often posted, guaranteed on popular stories. Commenting without context does not make for good discussion.
- mvdtnz 1y ago
  What on Earth? You're posting an article about the same thing we're already discussing. If you want to contribute to the conversation you owe it to the people who are taking time out of their day to engage with you to read the material under discussion.
threatofrain 1y ago
Although I don't believe current technology is ready for talk therapy, I'd say that anti-depressants can also cause suicidal thoughts and feelings. Judging the efficacy of medical technology can't be done on this kind of moral absolutism.
- AIPedant 1y ago
  I think it's fine to be "morally absolutist" when it's non-medical technology, developed with zero input from federal regulators, yet being misused and misleadingly marketed for medical purposes.
- podgietaru 1y ago
  The suicidal ideation of Antidepressants is a well communicated side effect. Antidepressants are prescribed by trained medical professionals who will tell you, encourage you to tell them if these side effects occur, and will encourage you to stop the medication if it does occur. It's almost as if we've built systems around this stuff for a reason.
  - Denatonium 1y ago
    In practice, they'll just prescribe a higher dose when that happens, thus worsening the problem. I'm not defending the use of AI chatbots, but you'd be hard-pressed to come up with a worse solution for depression than the medical system.
    - podgietaru 1y ago
      Not my experience at all. The Psych that prescribed me antidepressants was _incredibly_ diligent. Including with side effects that affected my day to day life like loss of Libido. We spent a long time finding something, but when we did it worked exceptionally well. We absolutely did not just increase the dose. And I'm almost certain the literature for this would NOT recommend an increase of dosage if the side effect was increased suicidality. The demonisation of medication needs to stop. It is an important tool in the toolbelt for depression. It is not the end of the journey, but it makes that journey much easier to walk.
npteljes 1y ago
You might not care personally, but this isn't how we do anything, because we wouldn't have anything in the world at all. Different things harm and kill people all the time, and many of them have barely any use than harmful activity, yet they are still active parts of our lives. I understand the emotional impact of what happened in this case, but there is not much to discuss if we just reject everything outright.

idk dude if your technology encourages a teenager to kill itself and prevents him from alerting his parents via a cry for help, I don’t care how “beneficial” it is.

MBCook 1y ago

I agree. If there was one death for 1 million saves, maybe. Instead, this just came up in my feed: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/08/chatgpt-helped-teen-plan-suicide-after-safeguards-failed-openai-admits/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/08/chatgpt-helped-t...

rideontime 1y ago
This is the same case that is being discussed, and your comment up-thread does not demonstrate awareness that you are, in fact, agreeing with the parent comment that you replied to. I get the impression that you read only the headline, not the article, and assumed it was a story about someone using ChatGPT for therapy and gaining a positive outcome.
- MBCook 1y ago
  I did! Because I can’t see past the paywall. I can’t even read the first paragraph. So the headline is the only context I have.
  - rideontime 1y ago
    I would advise you to gather more context before commenting in the future.
  - latexr 1y ago
    A link to bypass the paywall has been posted several hours before your comment, and currently sits at the top. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45027043 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45027043 I recommend you get in the habit of searching for those. They are often posted, guaranteed on popular stories. Commenting without context does not make for good discussion.
mvdtnz 1y ago
What on Earth? You're posting an article about the same thing we're already discussing. If you want to contribute to the conversation you owe it to the people who are taking time out of their day to engage with you to read the material under discussion.

threatofrain 1y ago

Although I don't believe current technology is ready for talk therapy, I'd say that anti-depressants can also cause suicidal thoughts and feelings. Judging the efficacy of medical technology can't be done on this kind of moral absolutism.

AIPedant 1y ago
I think it's fine to be "morally absolutist" when it's non-medical technology, developed with zero input from federal regulators, yet being misused and misleadingly marketed for medical purposes.
podgietaru 1y ago
The suicidal ideation of Antidepressants is a well communicated side effect. Antidepressants are prescribed by trained medical professionals who will tell you, encourage you to tell them if these side effects occur, and will encourage you to stop the medication if it does occur. It's almost as if we've built systems around this stuff for a reason.
- Denatonium 1y ago
  In practice, they'll just prescribe a higher dose when that happens, thus worsening the problem. I'm not defending the use of AI chatbots, but you'd be hard-pressed to come up with a worse solution for depression than the medical system.
  - podgietaru 1y ago
    Not my experience at all. The Psych that prescribed me antidepressants was _incredibly_ diligent. Including with side effects that affected my day to day life like loss of Libido. We spent a long time finding something, but when we did it worked exceptionally well. We absolutely did not just increase the dose. And I'm almost certain the literature for this would NOT recommend an increase of dosage if the side effect was increased suicidality. The demonisation of medication needs to stop. It is an important tool in the toolbelt for depression. It is not the end of the journey, but it makes that journey much easier to walk.

npteljes 1y ago

You might not care personally, but this isn't how we do anything, because we wouldn't have anything in the world at all. Different things harm and kill people all the time, and many of them have barely any use than harmful activity, yet they are still active parts of our lives. I understand the emotional impact of what happened in this case, but there is not much to discuss if we just reject everything outright.