The Doctor Behind the ‘Suicide Pod’ Wants AI to Assist at the End of Life

From Wired Magazine:

The world's first assisted suicide pod wraps around the human body like a space capsule, tilting gently toward the sky. The device is designed to look as if the person inside were embarking on a journey, says its inventor, the Australian right-to-die activist Philip Nitschke. “It gives you the idea you’re saying goodbye to the world.” Last month, the 3D-printed pod was used for the first time. In a forest on the Swiss-German border, an unnamed 64-year-old American woman pressed the pod’s button to release deadly nitrogen gas. She died seven minutes later, estimated the Swiss assisted suicide group The Last Resort, whose president Florian Willet was present at her death and was later detained for “aiding and abetting” the woman’s suicide...With the Sarco pod, Nitschke proposes taking the assessment process out of the hands of medical professionals—whom he calls “gatekeepers”—and eventually delegating the task to machines. “I think a machine could do it better,” he tells WIRED. The Sarco machine has the ability to ask its users three simple questions, says Nitschke: Who are you? Where are you? Do you know if you press this button, you will die? If the person inside the pod responds to the questions with the correct preprogrammed answers, a blue button lights up.