Many people focusing a lot on the interaction between the guy and ChatGPT, and I would like to provide a different perspective as someone who's been in a similar position.

If you are seriously coming close to ending your own life, so many things around you have gone awry. Generally, people don't want to die. Consider: if an acquaintance suggested to you how a noose could be made, would you take the next step and hang yourself? Probably not. You have to be put through a lot of suffering to come to a point in life where ending it all is an appealing option.

Life had failed that guy and that's why he committed suicide, not because a chatbot told him to. Just the fact that a chatbot is his closest friend is a huge red flag for his wellbeing. The article says how he appeared so happy, which is exactly an indicator of how much disconnect there was between him and those around him. He wasn't sharing how he was truly feeling with anyone, he probably felt significant shame around it. That's sad. What else may have gone amiss to lead him to such a point? Issues with health? Social troubles? Childhood problems? Again, it's not a healthy state of things to be considering suicide, even including teenage quirkiness. His case is a failure of family, friends, and society. Discussing ChatGPT as the cause of his death is ignoring so many significant factors.

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kayodelycaon 6 days ago | parent | next [-]

Mental health is a lot more complicated than that. A visible external cause isn’t necessary. Things are completely normal people wouldn’t have any problem with can be extremely traumatizing to someone else

Teenagers may not have the life experience to handle what adults find simple.

Neural divergence can be a major factor as well.

Telling a child with ADHD they just need to try harder is a recipe for life-long self-hatred.

	▲	mcdeltat 6 days ago \| parent [-]
		This is exactly my point. I said "life failed him" not "he failed life". All of your examples are the environment around you not giving you sufficient support. Struggling because you have had traumatising experiencing or neurodivergence should not be normalised. Labelleing someone as neurodivergent shouldn't be an excuse for us to be ok with them suffering. Getting to the point of considering suicide should be seriously examined. Society needs to do better to support people of all varieties.

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e-khadem 6 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Sometimes things happen in life, and we don't have any agency. The person apparently had some medical issues as well.

These excuses cannot be used to discount the role of ChatGPT in this. In highschool and at university I knew a few guys (n = 7) that attempted suicide. They all survived because they didn't have the knowledge of "known to work" methods and the survival rates of other methods. And then people noticed their struggles, they were sent to therapy and thankfully all recovered.

The point I'm trying to make is that, even telling someone (or not) that "this drug overdose won't kill you" and "you can hide the noose red marks on your neck like this" can literally be the difference between life and death. I would even lean on the side of "no information and straight refusal is the better action" here.

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slibhb 6 days ago | parent | next [-]

> They all survived because they didn't have the knowledge of "known to work" methods and the survival rates of other methods

Are we seriously going to pretend that "how to kill youself" is arcane knowledge that can only be unlocked by ChatGPT?

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e-khadem 6 days ago | parent [-]

We are talking about isolated teenagers. Many movies (and stories) show drug overdose and self inflicted wounds as suicide methods, when in reality the survival rate without significant injuries is very high. Also in many cities it might be very hard to find a high place. The keypoint is that the signal to noise ratio is often too low (and deliberately so).

Edit: also consider that suicide rate is much higher after depression symptoms improve. Severely depressed people simply lack the energy to research the topic or acquire the tools. Even the OP's hanging failed for the first time. And they had to specifically look for some suitable material for the second time, and had to double check every step ...

	▲	moi2388 6 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Why are we talking about isolated teenagers? This teenager wasn’t isolated at all. People who are serious about committing suicide find their ways. Usually hanging, guns or trains.
	▲	slibhb 6 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		> when in reality the survival rate without significant injuries is very high You better pipe down about this. An isolated teenager might read it and decide to shoot himself in the head rather than swallow some pills. Maybe the next NYT suicide ragebait article will be about you.

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mcdeltat 6 days ago | parent | prev [-]

My point is why should these things be the difference between life or death in the first place? Why are they struggling silently? Why are they researching suicide methods? Just because it's common doesn't mean we should rest our argument. Society has failed to put these people in such scenarios where they are so distressed they turn to self harm.

	▲	e-khadem 5 days ago \| parent [-]
		You're right. But we have to do defense in depth and act on every feasible lever that can be pulled.