Lucas Roberts

One of the AI researchers whose blogs I read, Felix Hill, has committed suicide. RIP 😢 He left a note which should be an alarm signal - the dark side of Silicon Valley culture. Read it and you’ll have at least 5 friends that come to mind when you read it based on his description of his life circumstances that tragically led to his loss. The insatiated need for success, the peer pressure, following cult tech bros and the dugs they get to be more productive, being too easily prescribed anti-depressants and the overall stress of building in AI now. From the suicide note, linked below: “So I doubled down on ambition, at the cost of looking out for my loved ones. Sometimes, moving forward in my career felt like a life-and-death issue, like I would drown if I didn’t keep going; that I had to succeed to survive.” “And so I became increasingly curious about Silicon Valley stories of drugs that reduce anxiety and improve focus, as well as remove the need for alcohol as a means to switch off.” “I started to take Ketamine (Elon Musk’s choice), because it was the easiest of the psychoactive drugs to get, and because it felt ‘safer’ to me than something like LSD or psylocybin.” If you feel like you’re getting close, reach out to friends or people you know, or call the crisis line. Silicon Valley is a wonderful place but can also catch one in its dark side and can consume one. What helps me is to go back to my small village in Romania where nobody knows or cares to know who Sam Altman is. Find your grounding place. In the chase for money and success, it’s easy to lose track of what fully matters - health and family.