13 replies to this topic

[basho]

An interesting but sad story from Wired Magazine:

Two AI Pioneers. Two Bizarre Suicides. What Really Happened?

The Wired headline is overly dramatic, but the article fortunately is more respectful, and the addition of links to actual newsgroup postings adds a sadly poignant touch.

"He said GAC would make him immortal."

McKinstry meant that part about immortality literally. "The only difference between you and me is the same as the difference between any two MP3s — bits," he wrote in an Amazon.com review of How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature, and Informatics. (He gave the book three stars.) McKinstry often told friends that he intended to upload his consciousness into a machine: He would never die.

...on January 23, after calls from panicked friends, the police checked McKinstry's apartment and found his body. He had unhooked the gas line from his stove and connected it to a bag sealed around his head. He was dead at age 38.

...

Four weeks after Chris McKinstry committed suicide, the police were dispatched to an apartment at 1010 Massachusetts Avenue near MIT. Inside, they found the 33-year-old Singh. He had connected a hose from a tank of helium gas to a bag taped around his head. Mahender Singh still has the robot that his son created in high school. "He thought that computers should think as you and I think," he says. "He thought it would change the world. I was so proud of him, and now I don't know what to do without him. His mother cries every day."

[Cyberbrain]

While these guys were very heavily interested in AI, I doubt they committed suicide to upload their brain to a computer. I think they had other problems. Maybe they were just trying to get high off the gas? Still, I find this story very sad and depressing.

Edited by Kostas, 19 January 2008 - 07:59 PM.

[Karomesis]

I'm not saying to make light of their deaths, but I do stay awake at nights sometimes pondering something smarter than me, and the possible implications of such a creation.

It is one of the very few things besides death that scares the living shit out of me.

[eldar]

McKinstry seems to have had a history of mental illness, but Singhs case really surprises me. Everything seems to indicate that he was going to have a great career and life. Very sad indeed.

It is one of the very few things besides death that scares the living shit out of me.

Does this mean you wouldn't like to see smarter than human AI being created?

Edited by ceth, 19 January 2008 - 11:42 PM.

[Karomesis]

Does this mean you wouldn't like to see smarter than human AI being created?

well....yes, and no. I can appreciate AI and it''s complexities.

it's the dominating attributes that I have a difficult time understanding.

[forever freedom]

Too bad. Two minds that could have contributed much more to the AI field, even though their projects to create AI didn't get me very optimistic..

[Shannon Vyff]

Wonder if cryonics organizations could take a public and controversial suicide (such as this situation where there may have been brain disorders involved) sad cases...

[Lazarus Long]

There is probably too much time lost Shannon between the act (physical death) and when the actual procedure can be applied to make any difference. Remember they are not found right away and their bodies are not immediately chilled down to prevent the initial apoptotic cascade throughout the body. Their brain and the retained memory have probably decayed too far to be recoverable.

[Shannon Vyff]

Well--if the person intended to be preserved and took themselves to the exterior of a cryonics organization's property boundaries...

[Lazarus Long]

I am all in favor of the principle of intentional suspension prior to compete deterioration but the fact of the matter is that if they were to be involved with such a process they probably would be considered to be *assisting suicide* and in violation of the law in much of the country.

It is a terrible catch 22 because the chances of revival would be greatly improved to sooner that some types of medical cases were suspended but the law requires that *death* be not hastened and an official *death certificate * is required to give cryo a chance to save a life.

Maybe someday the laws can be changed but that is the current state of it as I understand it.

For example think of extreme Alzheimer's, by the time the body actually dies the brain is long gone.

[Lazarus Long]

BTW most suicides would not be expected to be thinking about coming back.

Ironically if this avenue were available then perhaps it might be undertaken instead of suicide with the idea that someday in the future the problems they find overwhelming today may be solved and they might be able to lead normal, happy, healthy lives. Even if that is from tweaking brain structure and chemistry during revival.

There are exceptions to this also. I read the other day how a bridge jumper off the Golden Gate because after they took their swan dive with intent to die they recanted and in mid air changed their postion sufficiently to land on their feet in a siting position. Ironically they did survive.

There has been a spate of such stories of late as the economy turns. Another suicidal bridge jumping surviver the other day did it again and died the second time. That was locally off the Tappen Zee.

[Cyberbrain]

It's kind of weird when people commit suicide. Consciously or unconsciously, our biggest fear we have in life is death. Everything we do is to avoid it. When things get meshed up some people commit suicide in order to escape, unknowingly that they are just defeating the purpose. Ask your self, whats the worst thing that can happen in any situation and you'll always see that it's death. Therefore suicide defeats its purpose.

[amar]

It is for them to die and us to live on. Who can say who has it better? Hopefully there will become a good peace at both ends though, of the dead and the undead.