Man uses suicide-robot to kill self
An 81-year-old Australian man killed himself using a suicide robot built with plans off the internet. The machine was attached to a .22 semi-automatic pistol, which fired four bullets into the man’s head after being activated. According to his note, he decided to die after demands from his interstate relatives that he move out of his house, where he lived alone, and into care. He set up the death robot in his driveway around 7 a.m. Wednesday, so that nearby workers would hear the gunshots and find his body, which was what happened.
Granted, suicide machines are nothing new to Australia. In 2002, Dr. Philip Nitschke launched a machine that would allow people to die peacefully by breathing in pure carbon monoxide through a face mask. In fact, Nitschke successfully campaigned to have a legal euthanasia law passed in the Northern Territory, which helping four people to kill themselves before the law was overturned by the Federal government. Nitschke also designed an ‘exit bag’, a plastic bag with an elasticized opening used to commit suicide through suffocation, and last year published The Peaceful Pill Handbook, which was banned in Australia and New Zealand quickly after its release, supposedly not so much because of its stance on euthanasia but its instructions on making drugs and committing other crimes.
Suicide-assisting robots are nothing new to scifi, from I, Robot to the suicide-booths on Futurama, machines continue to make difficult decisions simpler. So we continue towards a hyperreal future where even life-death decisions can be made at the push of a button. The growing death-toll of people killed by robots may also be a point of concern for those who dismiss the possibility of a violent robot uprising. Fortunately, so far they only kill us when we want them too.
Australian Man Gunned Down in Driveway by Killer Robot, FoxNews.com
Nitschke launches suicide machine, SMH.com.au