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OpenAI says over a million people talk to ChatGPT about suicide weekly

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Re: OpenAI says over a million people talk to ChatGPT about suicide weekly

#21

Post by ben_w »

mgh2 wrote: post #8
NathanKP wrote: post #3

> It is estimated that more than one in five U.S. adults live with a mental illness (59.3 million in 2022; 23.1% of the U.S. adult population). https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/statistics/mental-illness Most people don't understand just how mentally unwell the US population is. Of course there are one million talking to ChatGPT about suicide weekly. This is not a surprising stat at all. It's just a question of what to…

Are you sure ChatGPT is the solution? It just sounds like another "savior complex" sell spin from tech. 1. Social media -> connection 2. AGI -> erotica 3. Suicide -> prevention All these for engagement (i.e. addiction). It seems like the tech industry is the root cause itself trying to masquerade the problem by brainwashing the population. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45026886

I personally take no opinion about whether or not they can actually solve anything, because I am not a psychologist and have absolutely no idea how good or bad ChatGPT is at this sort of thing, but I will say I'd rather the company at least tries to do some good given that Facebook HQ is not very far from their offices and appears to have been actively evil in this specific regard.

Re: OpenAI says over a million people talk to ChatGPT about suicide weekly

#24

Post by JDEW »

lanfeust6 wrote: post #18
NathanKP wrote: post #3

> It is estimated that more than one in five U.S. adults live with a mental illness (59.3 million in 2022; 23.1% of the U.S. adult population). https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/statistics/mental-illness Most people don't understand just how mentally unwell the US population is. Of course there are one million talking to ChatGPT about suicide weekly. This is not a surprising stat at all. It's just a question of what to…

This stat is for AMI, for any mental disorder ranging from mild to severe. Anyone self-reporting a bout of anxiety or mild depression qualifies as a data point for mental illness. For suicide ideation the SMI stat is more representative. There are 800 million weekly active users on ChatGPT. 1/800 users mentioning suicide is a surprisingly low number, if anything.

> 1/800 users mentioning suicide…

“conversations that include explicit indicators of potential suicidal planning or intent.”

Sounds like more than just mentioning suicide. Also it’s per week, which is a pretty short time interval.

Re: OpenAI says over a million people talk to ChatGPT about suicide weekly

#25

Post by SecretDreams »

mgh2 wrote: post #8
NathanKP wrote: post #3

> It is estimated that more than one in five U.S. adults live with a mental illness (59.3 million in 2022; 23.1% of the U.S. adult population). https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/statistics/mental-illness Most people don't understand just how mentally unwell the US population is. Of course there are one million talking to ChatGPT about suicide weekly. This is not a surprising stat at all. It's just a question of what to…

Are you sure ChatGPT is the solution? It just sounds like another "savior complex" sell spin from tech. 1. Social media -> connection 2. AGI -> erotica 3. Suicide -> prevention All these for engagement (i.e. addiction). It seems like the tech industry is the root cause itself trying to masquerade the problem by brainwashing the population. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45026886

You actually need to add a loop in there between the suicide and erotica steps.

Re: OpenAI says over a million people talk to ChatGPT about suicide weekly

#28

Post by yieldcrv »

I talk to ChatGPT about topics I feel society isnt enlightened enough to talk about

I feel suicide is heavily misunderstood as well

People just copypasta prevention hotlines and turn their minds off from the topic

Although people have identified a subset of the population that is just impulsively considering suicide and can be deterred, it doesnt serve the other unidentified subsets who are underserved by merely distracting them. or underserved by assuming theyre wrong even

The article doesnt even mean people are considering suicide for themselves, the article says some of them are, the top comment on this thread suggests thats why theyre talking about it

The top two comments on my version of the thread are assuming that we should have a savior complex about these discussions

If I disagree or think thats not a full picture, then where would I talk about that? ChatGPT

Re: OpenAI says over a million people talk to ChatGPT about suicide weekly

#29

Post by bawolff »

OgsyedIE wrote: post #12

Surprised it's so low. There are 800 million users and the typical developed country has around 5±3% of the population[1] reporting at least one notable instance of suicidal feelings per year. . [1] Anybody concerned by such figures (as one justifiably should be without further context) should note that suicidality in the population is typically the result of their best approximation of the rational mind attempting t…

> [1] Anybody concerned by such figures (as one justifiably should be without further context) should note that suicidality in the population is typically the result of their best approximation of the rational mind attempting to figure out an escape from a consistently negative situation under conditions of very limited information about alternatives, as is famously expressed in the David Foster Wallace quote on the topic.

> The phenomenon usually vanishes after gaining new, previously inaccessible information about potential opportunities and strategies.

Is this actually true? (i.e. backed up by research)

[I'm not neccesarily doubting, that is just different from my mental model of how suicidal thoughts work, so im just curious]

Re: OpenAI says over a million people talk to ChatGPT about suicide weekly

#30

Post by SecretDreams »

OgsyedIE wrote: post #12

Surprised it's so low. There are 800 million users and the typical developed country has around 5±3% of the population[1] reporting at least one notable instance of suicidal feelings per year. . [1] Anybody concerned by such figures (as one justifiably should be without further context) should note that suicidality in the population is typically the result of their best approximation of the rational mind attempting t…

To be fair, this is week and more focused specifically on planning or intent. Over a year, you may get more unique hits to those attributes.. which I feel are both more intense indicators than just suicidal feelings on the scale of "how quickly feelings will turn to actions". Talking in the same language and timescales are important in drawing these comparisons - it very well could be that OAI's numbers are higher than what you are comparing against when normalized for the differences I've highlighted or others I've missed.
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