I am considering ending my life because of fears related to AI risk. I am posting here because I want other people to review my reasoning process and help ensure I make the right decision.
First, this is not an emergency situation. I do not currently intend to commit suicide, nor have I made any plan for doing so. No matter what I decide, I will wait several years to be sure of my preference. I am not at all an impulsive person, and I know that ASI is very unlikely to be invented in less than a few decades.
I am not sure if it would be appropriate to talk about this here, and I prefer private conversations anyway, so the purpose of this post is to find people willing to talk with me through PMs. To summarize my issue: I only desire to live because of the possibility of utopia, but I have recently realized that ASI-provided immortal life is significantly likely to be bad rather than good. If you are very familiar with the topics of AI risk, mind uploading, and utilitarianism, please consider sending me a message with a brief explanation of your beliefs and your intent to help me. I especially urge you to contact me if you already have similar fears of AI, even if you are a lurker and are not sure if you should. Because of the sensitive nature of this topic, I may not respond unless you provide an appropriately genuine introduction and/or have a legitimate posting history.
Please do not reply/PM if you just want to tell me to call a suicide prevention hotline, tell me the standard objections to suicide, or give me depression treatment advice. I might take a long time to respond to PMs, especially if several people end up contacting me. If nobody contacts me I will repost this in the next discussion thread or on another website.
Edit: The word limit on LW messages is problematic, so please email me at sad_dolphin@protonmail.com instead.
WTF is this? Please take a step back, and look at what you did here.
Your literally first words on this website are about suicide. Then you say no suicide, and then you explain in detail how people are not supposed to talk about your possible suicide. Half of your total contribution on this website is about your suicide-not-suicide. Thanks; now everyone can understand they are not supposed to think about the pink elephant in the room. So… why have you mentioned it, in the first place? Three times in a row, using a bold font once, just to be sure. Seems like you actually want people to think about your possible suicide, but also to feel guilty if they mention it. Because the same comment, without this mind game, could be written like this:
I have recently realized that ASI-provided immortal life is significantly likely to be bad rather than good. If you are very familiar with the topics of AI risk, mind uploading, and utilitarianism, I am interested in your opinions about this topic.
Much less drama, right?
Next, you provide zero information about yourself. You are a stranger here, and you use anonymized e-mail. And I guess we will not learn more about you here, because you prefer private conversations anyway. However, you “urge” people to contact you, and provide an “appropriately genuine introduction”, a brief explanation of their beliefs, and their intent to help you. But they are not supposed to mention your suicide-not-suicide, right? But they are supposed to want to help you. But they are not allowed to suggest seeking expert help. And they are supposed to tell you things about themselves, without knowing anything about you. And this all is supposed to happen off-site, without any observers, inter alie because the word limit on LW messages is problematic. Right. How weird no one else has realized yet how much this problematic word limit prevents us from debating AI-related topics here.
More red flags than in China on Mao’s birthday.
I don’t think you are in a risk of suicide. Instead, I think that people who would contact you are in serious risk of being emotionally exploited (and reminded of your suicide-not-suicide, and their intent to help). Something like: “I told you that I am ready to die unless you convince me not to; and you promised you would help me; and you know that I will never seek expert help; and you don’t know whether anyone else talks to me; so… if you stop interacting with me, you might be responsible for my death; is that really okay for you as a utilitarian?”
If anyone wants to play this game, go ahead. I have already seen my share of “suicidal” people giving others detailed instructions how to interact with them, and unsurprisingly, decades later all of them are still alive; and the people who interacted with them regret having that experience.
I corresponded with sad_dolphin. It added a little bit of gloom to my day, but I don’t regret doing it: havingsuffered from similar psychological problems in the past, I want to be there with my hard-won expertise for people working through the same questions. I agree that most people who talk about suicide in such a manner are unlikely to go through with it, but that doesn’t mean they’re not being subjectively sincere. I’d rather such cries for help not be disincentivized here (as you seem to be trying to do); I’d rather people be able to seek and receive support from people who actually understand their ideas, rather than callously foisted off onto alleged “experts” who don’t understand.
I am not sure how to even respond to this. I do not know what drives you to hatefully twist my words, depicting my cry for help as some kind of contrived attempt at manipulation, but you are obviously not acting with anything close to an altruistic intent.
Yes, I am entirely serious about this. Far more than you know. Perhaps if you had contacted me to have an intelligent discussion, instead of directly proceeding to accuse me with many critical generalizations, you would have realized that.
I have had several people message me already, and we are currently having civil discussions about potential future scenarios. I am certain they would all attest that they are not being ‘emotionally exploited’, as you seem to think is my goal. I publicly mentioned suicide because genuine consideration of the possibility was the entire point of the post, and I (correctly, for the most part) assumed that this community was mature enough to handle it without any drama.
You clearly have zero experience dealing with suicidal individuals, and would do well to stay away from this discussion. I had a hard enough time working up the courage to make that post, and I really do not want any drama from this. I hope you will do the mature thing and just leave me alone.
The mature way to handle suicidal people is to call professional help, as soon as possible. If the suicidal thinking is caused by some kind of hormonal imbalance—which the person will report as “I have logically concluded that it is better for me to die”, because that is how it feels from inside—you cannot fix the hormonal imbalance by a clever argument; that would be magical thinking. Most likely, you will talk to the person until their hormonal spike passes, then the person will say “uhm, what you said makes a lot of sense, I already feel better, thanks!”, and the next day you will find them hanging from the noose in their room, because another hormonal spike hit them later in the evening, and they “logically concluded” that life actually is meaningless and there is no hope and no reason to delay the inevitable, so they wouldn’t even call you or wait until the morning, because that also would be pointless.
(Been there, failed to do the right thing, lost a friend.)
Sure, this seems like an unfalsifiable hypothesis “you believe it is not caused by hormones because that belief is caused by hormones”. But that’s exactly the reason to seek professional help instead of debating it; to measure your actual level of hormones, and if necessary, to fix it. Body and mind are connected more than most people admit.
That’s all from my side. If you are sincere, I wish you luck. Any meaningful help I could offer is exactly what you refuse, so I have nothing more to add.
The mature way to handle suicidal people is to call professional help, as soon as possible.
It’s worth noting that this creates an incentive to never talk about your problems.
My advice for people who value not being kidnapped and forcibly drugged by unaccountable authority figures who won’t listen to reason is to never voluntarily talk to psychiatrists, for the same reason you should never talk to cops.
It would be great to have a service where you get your blood sample taken and tested anonymously, and then anonymously receive pills to fix the problem. But I guess most suicidal people would (1) refuse to use this service anyway, either because of some principle, or because they would “logically” conclude it is useless and cannot possibly help; and (2) even if a friend would push them to do so, at some moment they would find a reason to stop taking the pills, and when the effect of the pills wears off, conclude “logically” that the life is not worth living.
I’ve talked to some unstable folks who were really upset by ideas like AI blackmail, rescue sims, etc. Did my best to help them, which sometimes worked and sometimes didn’t. If such ideas didn’t exist, I suspect these folks would latch onto something more accessible with similar nightmare potential, like the Christian hell or the multiverse or simply the amount of suffering in our world. Mostly I agree with Viliam that fixing the mood with chemicals (or mindfulness, workouts, sunshine, etc) is a better idea than trying to reason through it.
I am considering ending my life because of fears related to AI risk. I am posting here because I want other people to review my reasoning process and help ensure I make the right decision.
First, this is not an emergency situation. I do not currently intend to commit suicide, nor have I made any plan for doing so. No matter what I decide, I will wait several years to be sure of my preference. I am not at all an impulsive person, and I know that ASI is very unlikely to be invented in less than a few decades.
I am not sure if it would be appropriate to talk about this here, and I prefer private conversations anyway, so the purpose of this post is to find people willing to talk with me through PMs. To summarize my issue: I only desire to live because of the possibility of utopia, but I have recently realized that ASI-provided immortal life is significantly likely to be bad rather than good. If you are very familiar with the topics of AI risk, mind uploading, and utilitarianism, please consider sending me a message with a brief explanation of your beliefs and your intent to help me. I especially urge you to contact me if you already have similar fears of AI, even if you are a lurker and are not sure if you should. Because of the sensitive nature of this topic, I may not respond unless you provide an appropriately genuine introduction and/or have a legitimate posting history.
Please do not reply/PM if you just want to tell me to call a suicide prevention hotline, tell me the standard objections to suicide, or give me depression treatment advice. I might take a long time to respond to PMs, especially if several people end up contacting me. If nobody contacts me I will repost this in the next discussion thread or on another website.
Edit: The word limit on LW messages is problematic, so please email me at sad_dolphin@protonmail.com instead.
WTF is this? Please take a step back, and look at what you did here.
Your literally first words on this website are about suicide. Then you say no suicide, and then you explain in detail how people are not supposed to talk about your possible suicide. Half of your total contribution on this website is about your suicide-not-suicide. Thanks; now everyone can understand they are not supposed to think about the pink elephant in the room. So… why have you mentioned it, in the first place? Three times in a row, using a bold font once, just to be sure. Seems like you actually want people to think about your possible suicide, but also to feel guilty if they mention it. Because the same comment, without this mind game, could be written like this:
Much less drama, right?
Next, you provide zero information about yourself. You are a stranger here, and you use anonymized e-mail. And I guess we will not learn more about you here, because you prefer private conversations anyway. However, you “urge” people to contact you, and provide an “appropriately genuine introduction”, a brief explanation of their beliefs, and their intent to help you. But they are not supposed to mention your suicide-not-suicide, right? But they are supposed to want to help you. But they are not allowed to suggest seeking expert help. And they are supposed to tell you things about themselves, without knowing anything about you. And this all is supposed to happen off-site, without any observers, inter alie because the word limit on LW messages is problematic. Right. How weird no one else has realized yet how much this problematic word limit prevents us from debating AI-related topics here.
More red flags than in China on Mao’s birthday.
I don’t think you are in a risk of suicide. Instead, I think that people who would contact you are in serious risk of being emotionally exploited (and reminded of your suicide-not-suicide, and their intent to help). Something like: “I told you that I am ready to die unless you convince me not to; and you promised you would help me; and you know that I will never seek expert help; and you don’t know whether anyone else talks to me; so… if you stop interacting with me, you might be responsible for my death; is that really okay for you as a utilitarian?”
If anyone wants to play this game, go ahead. I have already seen my share of “suicidal” people giving others detailed instructions how to interact with them, and unsurprisingly, decades later all of them are still alive; and the people who interacted with them regret having that experience.
I corresponded with sad_dolphin. It added a little bit of gloom to my day, but I don’t regret doing it: having suffered from similar psychological problems in the past, I want to be there with my hard-won expertise for people working through the same questions. I agree that most people who talk about suicide in such a manner are unlikely to go through with it, but that doesn’t mean they’re not being subjectively sincere. I’d rather such cries for help not be disincentivized here (as you seem to be trying to do); I’d rather people be able to seek and receive support from people who actually understand their ideas, rather than callously foisted off onto alleged “experts” who don’t understand.
I am not sure how to even respond to this. I do not know what drives you to hatefully twist my words, depicting my cry for help as some kind of contrived attempt at manipulation, but you are obviously not acting with anything close to an altruistic intent.
Yes, I am entirely serious about this. Far more than you know. Perhaps if you had contacted me to have an intelligent discussion, instead of directly proceeding to accuse me with many critical generalizations, you would have realized that.
I have had several people message me already, and we are currently having civil discussions about potential future scenarios. I am certain they would all attest that they are not being ‘emotionally exploited’, as you seem to think is my goal. I publicly mentioned suicide because genuine consideration of the possibility was the entire point of the post, and I (correctly, for the most part) assumed that this community was mature enough to handle it without any drama.
You clearly have zero experience dealing with suicidal individuals, and would do well to stay away from this discussion. I had a hard enough time working up the courage to make that post, and I really do not want any drama from this. I hope you will do the mature thing and just leave me alone.
The mature way to handle suicidal people is to call professional help, as soon as possible. If the suicidal thinking is caused by some kind of hormonal imbalance—which the person will report as “I have logically concluded that it is better for me to die”, because that is how it feels from inside—you cannot fix the hormonal imbalance by a clever argument; that would be magical thinking. Most likely, you will talk to the person until their hormonal spike passes, then the person will say “uhm, what you said makes a lot of sense, I already feel better, thanks!”, and the next day you will find them hanging from the noose in their room, because another hormonal spike hit them later in the evening, and they “logically concluded” that life actually is meaningless and there is no hope and no reason to delay the inevitable, so they wouldn’t even call you or wait until the morning, because that also would be pointless.
(Been there, failed to do the right thing, lost a friend.)
Sure, this seems like an unfalsifiable hypothesis “you believe it is not caused by hormones because that belief is caused by hormones”. But that’s exactly the reason to seek professional help instead of debating it; to measure your actual level of hormones, and if necessary, to fix it. Body and mind are connected more than most people admit.
That’s all from my side. If you are sincere, I wish you luck. Any meaningful help I could offer is exactly what you refuse, so I have nothing more to add.
It’s worth noting that this creates an incentive to never talk about your problems.
My advice for people who value not being kidnapped and forcibly drugged by unaccountable authority figures who won’t listen to reason is to never voluntarily talk to psychiatrists, for the same reason you should never talk to cops.
It would be great to have a service where you get your blood sample taken and tested anonymously, and then anonymously receive pills to fix the problem. But I guess most suicidal people would (1) refuse to use this service anyway, either because of some principle, or because they would “logically” conclude it is useless and cannot possibly help; and (2) even if a friend would push them to do so, at some moment they would find a reason to stop taking the pills, and when the effect of the pills wears off, conclude “logically” that the life is not worth living.
The more you write, the less sincere you sound.
I appreciate the comment here.
If ASI-provided immortal life were possible, you would already be living it.
… because if you’re somewhere in an infinite sequence, you’re more likely to be in the middle than at the beginning.
As an aside, against the most horrific version of UFAI, even suicide won’t avoid dystopia. Heh.
I’ve talked to some unstable folks who were really upset by ideas like AI blackmail, rescue sims, etc. Did my best to help them, which sometimes worked and sometimes didn’t. If such ideas didn’t exist, I suspect these folks would latch onto something more accessible with similar nightmare potential, like the Christian hell or the multiverse or simply the amount of suffering in our world. Mostly I agree with Viliam that fixing the mood with chemicals (or mindfulness, workouts, sunshine, etc) is a better idea than trying to reason through it.