The inventor of a controversial suicide pod is making sure his device keeps up with the times by enhancing it with AI technology — which, we’re sorry to tell you, isn’t just some kind of dark joke.
“One part of the device that wasn’t ready yet, but is now ready, is artificial intelligence,” said inventor Philip Nitschke. daily Mail one in new interview.
Named Sarco Pod after the ancient coffin, the euthanasia chamber, first built in 2019, has been championed by pro-assisted dying organization The Last Resort. In 2024, it was used to facilitate the suicide of a 64-year-old woman in Switzerland. The 3D-printed pod is activated when a person wishing to take their own life presses a button, filling the sealed, futuristic-looking coffin with nitrogen causing the user to lose consciousness and die “peacefully” within minutes.
To date, the woman’s death in Switzerland is the only case to see a Serco pod in action in the real world. Shortly after his death, Swiss authorities arrived at the Sylvan cabin where the pod was located and arrested him late in the day. florian willetThe then-co-chairman of Last Resort, who was overseeing his death, was suspected of aiding and abetting the suicide. He was eventually released after two months.
Assisted death is technically legal in Switzerland, but only if the person seeking suicide has the mental capacity to make the decision, and only if they carry out the suicide themselves rather than having a third party do it.
The last thing that happens is that the patient presses the button to activate the chamber, a solution that stands on legally shaky ground (hence Willett’s arrest). Even more controversial is determining whether the patient is capable of making their own lethal decision – of course, this is where AI enters the picture.
As Nitschke was designing a “Double Dutch” version of the Sarco pod that would allow couples to die together, he came up with the idea of using AI to administer a psychiatric “test” to determine their mental capacity. If they pass the AI’s decision, it activates the “power to switch on Sarco”.
“That part wasn’t working when we first used the device,” Nitschke said. daily MailMention of the death of a 64-year-old woman.
“Traditionally, this is done by talking to a psychiatrist for five minutes, and we did that,” he explained. “A conventional assessment of his mental capacity was conducted by a Dutch psychiatrist.”
“But with the new Double Dutch, we’ll be incorporating software,” Nitschke continued, “so you have to do your little test online with the avatar, and if you pass that test, the avatar tells you that you have psychic abilities.”
Passing the test will give Serco power for the next 24 hours, during which one person or pair can climb inside and press a button to end everything. If they miss the day-long period, they will have to take the AI-administered test again.
How this will actually work in practice is as questionable as the promises of AI. AI models are hallucinogenic, worryingly sycophantic, and often fail when deployed in medical scenarios. Handing over the technology to allow someone to kill themselves – especially as AI chatbots are under the microscope in cases of so-called AI psychosis encouraging many adults and teenagers to take their own lives – seems like an ethical disaster waiting to happen.
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