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Comment by luisfmh | Hacker News Reader

So people that look to chatgpt for answers and help (as they've been programmed to do with all the marketing and capabilities from openai) should just die because they looked to chatgpt for an answer instead of google or their local suicide helpline? That doesn't seem reasonable, but it sounds to me like what you're saying.

> So did the user. If he didn't want to talk to a chatbot he could have stopped at any time. This sounds similar to when people tell depressed people, just stop being sad.

IMO if a company is going to claim and release some pretty disruptive and unexplored capabilities through their product, they should at least have to make it safe. You put a safety railing because people could trip or slip. I don't think a mistake that small should be end in death.

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Let's flip the hypothetical -- if someone googles for suicide info and scrolls past the hotline info and ends up killing themselves anyway, should google be on the hook?

I don't know. In that scenario, has any google software sold as being intelligent produced text encouraging and providing help with the act?

I don't know this for sure, but also I'm fairly sure that google make a concerted effort to not expose that information. Again, from experience. It's very hard to google a painless way to kill yourself.

Their SEO ranking actually ranks pages about suicide prevention very high.

The solution that is going to be found, is they will put some age controls, probably half-heartedly, and call it a day. I don't think the public can stomach the possible free speech limitations on consenting adults to use a dangerous tool that might cause them to hurt themselves.

Firstly, people don't "just die" by talking to a chatbot.

Secondly, if someone wants to die then I am saying it is reasonable for them to die.

> if someone wants to die then I am saying it is reasonable for them to die.

Including children? If so, do you believe it is reasonable for children to smoke cigarettes if they want to?

WOW! clealry you have no understanding of thoughts that might make their way to teenage minds or to children' minds in general. seriously, WOW!

Do you believe there exists such a thing as depression?

The thing about depression and suicidal thoughts is that they lie to you that things will never get better than where they are right now.

So someone wanting to die at any given moment, might not feel that way at any given moment in the future. I know I wouldn’t want any of my family members to make such a permanent choice to temporary problems.

1000% As I said in my comment. I never thought I'd be better. I am. I am happy and I live a worthwhile life.

In the throws of intense depression it's hard to even wake up. The idea that I was acting in my right mind, and was able to make a decision like that is insane to me.

If someone wants to look for their lost cat in a snowstorm should they be able to make that decision even if they could regret it in the future due to health reasons of going out in the cold to save their cat? I believe they should be able to make that decision for themselves. It's not the responsibility of your door manufacter to deny you the ability to go outside because it knows better than you and it is too dangerous.

This is a fairly weak attempt at salvaging your previous comment.

You are out of your mind if you think people can reliably tell what they want. Sometimes they can, sometimes they can't. Telling the difference is hard, but it's pretty clear that they can't when they suffer from the serious mental condition called depression.

During a lifetime, your perspective and world view will change completely - multiple times. Young people have no idea, because they haven't had the chance to experience it yet.

I never claimed that people could. People make choices that negatively or positively affect their entire life and that is a part of life.

A literal fedora wrote this comment.

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