Share the post "Will AI determine if we can end our lives? Will Everyone be capable of 3D-printing suicide pods for themselves?"
Recently debate about suicide Sarco pods came back to life. We still are not sure if our lives should be put in hands of AI. Certainly, it’s hard to imagine it deciding if we are allowed to die.
The Sarco pod also known as Pegasos and has been referred to as a “suicide pod” is a euthanasia device or machine consisting of a 3D-printed detachable capsule mounted on a stand that contains a canister of liquid nitrogen to die by suicide through inert gas asphyxiation. “Sarco” is short for “sarcophagus”. It is used in conjunction with inert gas nitrogen which decreases oxygen levels rapidly and prevents panic, a sense of suffocation and struggling before unconsciousness, known as the hypercapnic alarm response caused by the presence of high carbon dioxide concentrations in the blood. The Sarco was invented by euthanasia campaigner Philip Nitschke (Founder of Exit International a non-profit organisation advocating the legalisation of voluntary euthanasia and assisted suicide) in 2017.
The inventor thinks that the mainstream medical community has completely medicalized the end-of-life process while ignoring the many social, existential, or purely cognitive criteria related to it, which he argues are equally valid. That is why Nitschke and his team are creating an online interactive program that completely deletes the human aspect, thanks to its algorithm it will be able to evaluate if a certain person can get a “free pass” which is a ticket to use the death pod. The whole process will take less than 24 hours. He says his AI will assess a person’s eligibility for suicide using the guidelines suggested by a professor of law, health and ethics at the University of Sydney named Cameron Stewart, published in the Journal of Medical Ethics in 2011.
Interestingly, Nitschke says he’s been getting a tone of requests, from people who see “no future for the planet” due to all sorts of crises like a global warning and war in Ukraine. He considers them all equally respectable and answers that
“anyone who makes a rational decision to end their lives should have the best access to the best means necessary,”
The current pod costs around €25,000 to produce, a significant reduction in cost from the first version of Sarco, which came to over €150,000. But Nitschke’s aim is to reduce the price to zero and allow anyone anywhere to download the design and print it for themselves free of charge.
So, here we are thinking about the future. Will we accept the ideology of Philip Nitschke? Will we allow an AI to determine who is fit to choose their own way of death? Will we see people in the near future printing Sarco pods for themselves? Or maybe we will totally ignore Nitschke’s ideas? What do you think?
Sources:
- https://neo.life/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/sarco-death-pod-exit-international.jpg
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarco_pod#History
- https://neo.life/2022/05/assisted-suicide-on-demand/
- https://static.independent.co.uk/s3fs-public/thumbnails/image/2015/04/15/16/web-righttodie-getty.jpg?width=1200
- https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a3/Sarco-device.jpg
It is clear that Philip Nitschke truly believes in the idea of euthanasia and puts in maximum effort to make this process as comfortable as possible which is worth appreciation. For some people, it might be very soothing to know that there is a painless way out and it can help them deal with their problems in some way. However, during those difficult times, in my opinion, we should primarily focus on finding a way to fight depression and anxiety instead of accepting people’s will to die which is not natural. I also can not agree with AI being the one to determine whether someone is eligible to die or not. It is based on the complexity of humans’ emotions which even the best programs can not yet understand.
interesting post , I personally think that people should have freedom of choice ,and idea of these suicide pods might have a usage in some extreme cases , but in my opinion AI is still a rapidly growing invention and maybe it will develop to the point where its going to be used to prevent suicides rather than deciding wheter the person should use Nitschke’s device. Artificial intelligenceis a great tool and I hope one day it will be so reliable that people will put their life into its hand.