Probability of death by suicide by a 26 year old
The probability of a 26 year old dying of suicide in any given month (within the month of being named the key witness in the OpenAI copyright case, right before deposition) is roughly 1 in 100,000. Of course, the LessWrong community will shrug it off as a mere coincidence because computing the implications is just beyond the comfort level of everyone on this forum. The probability of any ex-OpenAI researcher dying in the past year is roughly 1 in 100 (as far as I know, this has not happened.)
It does seem pretty suspicious.
I’m like 98% confident this was not foul-play, partly because I doubt whatever evidence he had would be that important to the court case and obviously his death is going to draw far more attention to his view.
However, 98% is still quite worrying and I wish I could be >99% confident. I will be interested to see if there is further evidence. Given OpenAI’s very shady behavior with the secret non-disparagement agreements that came out a few months, it doesn’t seem completely impossible they might do this (but still very very unlikely imo).
This prior is a useful starting point, but you’ve definitely got to account for the stress of leaving OpenAI and going through a lawsuit.
(I downvoted this post for combative tone.)
I agree with your odds, or perhaps mine are a bit higher (99.5%?). But if there were foul play, I’d sooner point the finger at national security establishment than OpenAI. As far as I know, intelligence agencies committing murder is much more common than companies doing so. And OpenAI’s progress is seen as critically important to both.
Whist-blowers commit suicide rather often. First, they are already stressed by the situation. Second, they may want to attract attention to their problem if they feel being ignored or even punish the accused organization.
Among ‘hidden actions OpenAI could have taken that could (help) explain his death’, I’d put harassment well above murder.
Please don’t do this.