Category: Depression

Predictions Saving Lives or Making Nightmares Real?

A recent article appeared on the Forbes website, “Researchers Attempt to Predict and Prevent Suicide Using Deep Learning and Math“, discussing a team of scientists working on an algorithm to predict suicidal patterns and prevent suicides.  One of the scientists states the project goal being:  “if our algorithm can identify and stop just one or two, we will feel really good about that.”

On the one hand, this looks like a good idea that will help to save lives.  On the other hand, it brings to mind the nightmares of Philip K. Dick‘s (PKD) scifi short stories.  PKD is probably my single most favorite scifi author; and his scifi stories and novels contain as many warnings against future nightmares as they do predictions of future technologies.

In the PKD story, “The Minority Report” (PKDR/PKD4), murder and violent crimes are prevented through a combination of precognition abilities and computer algorithms that produce three reports.  If two of the three reports agree there will be a murder, the computer produces a card with the name of the would-be murderer, who is then sought out and apprehended by the pre-crime department.  However, the existence of the minority report indicates the future crime accepted for prevention may not show the whole picture.  In fact, the possibility of innocent persons being imprisoned for crimes that were never  going to be committed is raised by the narration of the story.

While pre-crime exists in a fictional setting, the overlooked minority reports, that might clear someone of a future crime, raises the question of whether this suicide algorithm’s identification of a suicidal patterns might result in similar problems of non-suicidal persons being institutionalized.  The behaviors might just meet a list programmed into a computer and not indicate an actual a future suicide.  Some of us with depression would definitely want assurances that something was in place to prevent this result.

The Forbes article also explains that project development involved “student[-]developed algorithms to do statistical analysis … to look for key factors related to suicide risks and apply deep learning methods to these large and complex datasets”.  When deep learning methods are discussed in connection to the algorithms, questions of artificial intelligence (AI) are also immediately raised.

In “The Defenders” (PKD1) and “Second Variety” (PKD3), PKD offers two differing views of what it could look like when an AI determines humans are their own worst threat.

In a more benign take on AI, the story, “The Defenders”, features robots designed to fight a war between the U.S. and Russia.  When humans leave the surface due to the increasing lethality of the weapons of war they’ve created, the robots determine the two groups of humans are bigger threats to the earth and that their war doesn’t even make sense.  Instead, the robots dupe humanity into believing the war is going on through the building and destroying of model replicas of human cities, while also cleaning and preserving the actual untouched cities.  The robots made an analysis of human behavior that determined they should keep the humans underground until their societies have moved on from warfare to a focus on survival in a generation or so.

However, PKD presents the nightmarish concept of robots designed to fight a war who’ve determined human life is a bigger threat than the robots on either side in the story, “Second Variety”.  These robots are designed to reproduce and to use learning processes to create even more deceptive and lethal versions of themselves to outwit the other side.  Further the two sides of the robot war eventually focus on making those deceptions more effective against the robots on the other side.  The war continues to be fought by the robot combatants with humans soldiers largely forgotten, except for being seen as a threat by the robots on both sides.

To clarify, I do not think the algorithm will use deep learning methods to gather humans into camps and exterminate them Terminator-franchise-style. 

However, we must bear in mind that any technology that involves computerized systems learning on their own, making decisions on their own, and enforcing objectives has the potential to become a very serious threat long-term unless safety precautions are put into place to prevent the machines from determining non-machines are all a threat.

Sources

Dick, Philip K. The Collected Stories of Philip K Dick Vol I. V vols.
New York: Citadel Twilight, 1990. (PKD1)
—. The Collected Stories of Philip K Dick Vol II. V vols.
New York: Citadel Twilight, 1995. (PKD2)
—. The Collected Stories of Philip K Dick Vol III. V vols.
New York: Citadel Press, 2002. (PKD3)
—. The Collected Stories of Philip K Dick Vol IV. V vols.
New York: Citadel Twilight, 1991. (PKD4)
—. The Collected Stories of Philip K Dick Vol V. V vols.
New York: Citadel Press, 1992. (PKD5)
—. The Philip K Dick Reader. New York: Citadel Press, 1997. (PKDR)

Clipart stolen from Clipartmax.

On Broken Brains

On my personal Facebook account, I follow the page of the Skeptical Meme Society. One of their latest posts stated, ” It’s time to stop shaming people for taking medicines they need to treat their illness” and linked to the article, Mental Illness Denial, by Yale University School of Medicine neurologist, Steven Novella, for the site Science-Based Medicine.

As someone who deals with depression, anxiety, and OCD, yes, I “won” the lottery of mental illnesses, this one caught my eye because if there’s one constant with mental illness it’s this: there is no shortage of people who advise that medical treatment should be avoided.

The primary purpose of Dr. Novella’s article is a response to another article written by a journalist who engages in what Novella identifies as “mental illness denial”. He does clarify that “there are legitimate criticisms of psychiatric science and practice”. However, he concludes, “To deny the role of medication can do great harm to those who may need it.”

If you’ve been looking for a source discussing mental illness medical treatment with a science-based focus, Dr Novella has you covered.

Clipart stolen from Clipartmax.

Mental Health as a Gaming Strategy

I found an interesting article on USA Today today while reading daily headlines.

A new game studio, 2Dogs Games, is creating a new game, Destiny’s Sword, where “your troops[‘] … experiences in combat will affect each character differently” and “influences their effectiveness in subsequent battles”.

The game design team is utilizing actual mental health research by working with clinical psychologists from Take This and veterans from Spartan Wellness to create realistic mental health reactions to combat experiences.

This game looks to be an unique change from the traditional Call of Duty-style first-person shooter where the gamer just kills everything in game, damn the consequences. Players will find that actions have consequences that go beyond the immediate battle concerns.

Unfortunately, it looks like we have to wait until November for the beta test and approximately a year from now to see the game go live. However, it looks like this will be a game worth waiting for.

Spravato (Esketamine) Nasal Spray for Treatment of Depression

Two announcements have shown up this month.

The first announcement is the FDA approval for the use of Spravato (esketamine), a nasal spray for treatment of depression.

The second announcement came this week.  This one is the VA approval of Spravato (esketamine) to be used by VA providers for treating veterans with depression.

For people with depression that are not experiencing improvements with traditional antidepressant medications, this provides an opportunity to try a new medication that can be added to the usual depression treatment through anti-depressants.

Because of the newness of the medication, there are still some restrictions to how the medication is given and a required period of observation after the medication is administered.

For those of us with depression, we have one more tool in our toolbox.

Clipart stolen from Clipartmax.

Veterans, Depression, Suicide, and the Correct Response

I’ve spent a lot of time over the past few days trying to decide how best to word/write this post.  The inspiration behind it is a couple of situations I’ve found myself in dealing with other veterans and the subject of suicide.  Two of the most heartbreaking things I’ve become aware of is:  1. The veteran community eats its own wounded; and 2. The veteran community can be among the cruelest when someone asks for help.

A lot of veterans, especially if you follow any of the veteran-oriented groups on Facebook, are very aware of and very vocal about the 22 veterans who die by suicide a day.  The number goes back to an old study and there are even questions today about whether the number is actually higher and not properly tracked,

Veterans too often play the my-experience-was-worse-than-yours-and-is-therefore-more-valid game and write off the pains and experiences of other veterans.  Not every veteran experiences even the same experience the same way.  Thus, the situation where three veterans can be in the same incident and one comes away normal, one comes away with PTSD, and one comes away with with post-traumatic growth.  This is especially troublesome when dealing with veterans who deal with depression, anxiety, and/or other mental illness issues that may not even be related to direct combat.

For starters, the suicidal brain of the depressed is already not reacting rationally.  Depression is a chemical imbalance.  The brain is not having a rational reaction to anything.  Instead, the brain is having an irrational reaction to existence in general.  The person suffering from this is not going to react positively to rational reasons why they should hold on to life.

This is where even the most well meaning of friends and loved ones can be the most dangerous.  Chastising someone about their experiences, especially with language that implies someone else is worse off, or the depressed person has no reason to be depressed is counter productive.  Most likely, your “rational” suggestions just became the permanent voice version that person’s brain now voices its own self-criticisms of the person being a burden on those around them and that they’d be better off dead.

Discounting someone’s experiences because they are not you experiences, discounting someone’s experiences because they are not “bad enough/serious enough”, or discounting someone’s experiences because of any reason that makes you look at the other individual as anything other than a person in pain, you are now a contributing factor and not part of the solution.

Want to help bring down the 22 veteran suicides a day number, reach out to your veteran friends.  Just be there.  Just listen to them.  Don’t judge.  Don’t try to solve whatever they are experiencing, just let them vent.  Let them know you are a resource they can count on anytime day or night.