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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

#291

Post by imiric »

exasperaited wrote: post #286
imiric wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with your concerns, but I think you're overestimating the value of a human intervening in these scenarios. A human can also say the wrong things to push someone in a certain direction. A psychologist, or anyone else for that matter, can't stop someone from committing suicide if they've already made up their mind about it. They're educated on human psychology, but they're not miracle workers. The best they can…

> A human can also say the wrong things to push someone in a certain direction. A psychologist, or anyone else for that matter, can't stop someone from committing suicide if they've already made up their mind about it. They're educated on human psychology, but they're not miracle workers. The best they can do is raise a flag if they suspect self-harm, but then again, so could a machine. ChatGPT essentially encouraged…

But that's not the issue. The issue is that a kid is talking to a machine without supervision in the first place, and presumably taking advice from it. The main questions are: where are the guardians of this child? What is the family situation and living environment?

A child thinking about suicide is clearly a sign that there are far greater problems in their life than taking advice from a machine. Let's address those first instead of demonizing technology.

To be clear: I'm not removing blame from any AI company. They're complicit in the ways they market these tools and how they make them accessible. But before we vilify them for being responsible for deaths, we should consider that there are deeper societal problems that should be addressed first.

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

#292

Post by omnimus »

courseofaction wrote: post #289
grey-area wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A word generator with no intelligence or understanding based on the contents of the internet should not be allowed near suicidal teens, nor should it attempt to offer advice of any kind. This is basic common sense. Add in the commercial incentives of 'Open'AI to promote usage for anything and everything and you have a toxic mix.

Replace 'word generator with no intelligence or understanding based on the contents of the internet' with 'for-profit health care system'. In retrospect, from experience, I'd take the LLM.

'not-for-profit healthcare system' has to surely be better better goal/solution than LLM

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

#293

Post by cmsj »

wongarsu wrote: post #259
bayindirh wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Supposing that the advice it provides does more good than harm, why? Because a human, esp. a confused and depressive human being is a complex thing. Much more complex than a stable, healthy human. Words encouraging a healthy person can break a depressed person further. Statistically positive words can deepen wounds, and push people more to the edge. Dark corners of human nature is twisted, hard to navigate and full…

You could make the same arguments to say that humans should never talk to suicidal people. And that really sounds counterproductive Also it's side-stepping the question, isn't it? "Supposing that the advice it provides does more good than harm" already supposes that LLMs navigate this somehow. Maybe because they are so great, maybe by accident, maybe because just having someone nonjudgmental to talk to has a net-posi…

That sounds like a pretty risky and irresponsible sort of study to conduct. It would also likely be extremely complicate to actually get a reliable result, given that people with suicidal ideations are not monolithic. You'd need to do a significant amount of human counselling with each study participant to be able to classify and control all of the variations - at which point you would be verging on professional negligence for not then actually treating them in those counselling sessions.

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

#294

Post by cmsj »

imiric wrote: post #284
bayindirh wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Supposing that the advice it provides does more good than harm, why? Because a human, esp. a confused and depressive human being is a complex thing. Much more complex than a stable, healthy human. Words encouraging a healthy person can break a depressed person further. Statistically positive words can deepen wounds, and push people more to the edge. Dark corners of human nature is twisted, hard to navigate and full…

I agree with your concerns, but I think you're overestimating the value of a human intervening in these scenarios. A human can also say the wrong things to push someone in a certain direction. A psychologist, or anyone else for that matter, can't stop someone from committing suicide if they've already made up their mind about it. They're educated on human psychology, but they're not miracle workers. The best they can…

> The best they can do is raise a flag

Depending on where you live, this may well result in the vulnerable person being placed under professional supervision that actively prevents them from dying.

That's a fair bit more valuable than when you describe it as raising a flag.

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

#295

Post by whycome »

latexr wrote: post #275
Al-Khwarizmi wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Supposing that the advice it provides does more good than harm, why? What's the objective reason? If it can save lives, who cares if the advice is based on intelligence and understanding or on regurgitating internet content?

> Supposing that the advice it provides does more good than harm That unsubstantiated supposition is doing a lot of heavy lifting and that’s a dangerous and unproductive way to frame the argument. I’ll make a purposefully exaggerated example. Say a school wants to add cyanide to every meal and defends the decision with “supposing it helps students concentrate and be quieter in the classroom, why not?”. See the proble…

I think you missed the thread here

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

#296

Post by chromehearts »

bondarchuk wrote: post #272
lanyard-textile wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I choose to believe that too. I think more people are interested than we’d initially believe. Money restrains many of our true wants. Sidebar — I do sympathize with the problem being thrust upon them, but it is now theirs to either solve or refuse. A chat like this is all you’ve said and dangerous, because they play a middle ground: Presenting a machine can evaluate your personal situation and reason about it, when i…

Sorry - what's with "I choose to believe"? Either you believe something or not, there is no choice. Maybe you mean "hope". Or "wishful thinking".

Yes, there is a choice; Belief doesn’t just happen to you, you choose to believe before you actually do

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

#297

Post by whycome »

imiric wrote: post #284
bayindirh wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Supposing that the advice it provides does more good than harm, why? Because a human, esp. a confused and depressive human being is a complex thing. Much more complex than a stable, healthy human. Words encouraging a healthy person can break a depressed person further. Statistically positive words can deepen wounds, and push people more to the edge. Dark corners of human nature is twisted, hard to navigate and full…

I agree with your concerns, but I think you're overestimating the value of a human intervening in these scenarios. A human can also say the wrong things to push someone in a certain direction. A psychologist, or anyone else for that matter, can't stop someone from committing suicide if they've already made up their mind about it. They're educated on human psychology, but they're not miracle workers. The best they can…

I should add that the persons responding to calls on suicide help lines are often just volunteers rather than psychologists.

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

#298

Post by chronci3830 »

alyxya wrote: post #47

Part of the concern I have is that OpenAI is contributing to these issues implicitly by helping companies automate away jobs. Maybe in the long term, society will adapt and continue to function, but many people will struggle to get by, and I don’t think OpenAI will meaningfully help them.

> OpenAI is contributing to these issues implicitly by helping companies automate away jobs.

Good luck implementing that.

Forbidding automation will make the product more expensive. Sales will go down, the company will go bankrupt.

Government cannot subsidize or sustain such a behavior forever either.

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

#299

Post by wafflemaker »

grey-area wrote: post #245
Al-Khwarizmi wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We would need the big picture, though... maybe it caused that death (which is awful) but it's also saving lives? If there are that many people confiding in it, I wouldn't be surprised if it actually prevents some suicides with encouraging comments, and that's not going to make the news. Before declaring that it shouldn't be near anyone with psychological issues, someone in the relevant field should study whether the…

A word generator with no intelligence or understanding based on the contents of the internet should not be allowed near suicidal teens, nor should it attempt to offer advice of any kind. This is basic common sense. Add in the commercial incentives of 'Open'AI to promote usage for anything and everything and you have a toxic mix.

Let's look at the problem from perspective of regular people. YMMV, but in countries I know most about, Poland and Norway (albeit a little less so for Norway) it's not about ChatGPT vs Therapist. It's about ChatGPT vs nothing.

I know people who earn above average income and still spend a significant (north of 20%) portion of their income on therapy/meds. And many don't, because mental health isn't that important to them. Or rather - they're not aware of how much helpful it can be to attend therapy. Or they just can't afford the luxury (that I claim it is) of private mental health treatment.

ADHD diagnosis took 2.5y from start to getting meds, in Norway.

Many kids grow up before their wait time in queue for pediatric psychologist is over.

It's not ChatGPT vs shrink. It's ChatGPT vs nothing or your uncle who tells you depression and ADHD are made up and you kids these days have it all too easy.

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

#300

Post by mns »

weatherlite wrote: post #180
diamond559 wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're doing something about it alright, they're monetizing their pain for shareholder gainz!

Sure but your therapist is also monetizing your pain for his own gain. Either A.I therapy works (e.g can provide good mental relief) or it doesn't. I tend to think it's gonna be amazing at those things talking from experience (very rough week with my mom's health deterioriating fast, did a couple of sessions with Gemini that felt like I'm talking to a therapist). Perhaps it won't work well for hard issues like real m…

But one is a company ran by sociopaths that have no empathy and couldn't care less about anything but money, while the other is a human that at least studied the field all their life.
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