Jim Fan

Update: Felix's farewell letter was just published. I read each and every word. Sharing here with my big audience because it may literally save lives. Turns out that stress in AI only contributed a bit. Overdose of ketamine (psychedelic drug) was what pushed him over the edge. Quote: "Recklessly, I clearly took too much. Within a week or so I became acutely psychotic. After days of unspeakable behaviour that I have some partial memory of, I was committed involuntarily to a mental health ward for 4 weeks [...] I wish so much that I’d never taken the Ketamine, at least without medical supervision. Without that, I am sure I could have resolved the challenges around alcohol, ambition and being too self-centred." Our brain is a neural network of ~100T parameters. Do NOT try to finetune those weight matrices with casual use of drugs! Similar to "loss spikes" in LLM training, one wrong gradient step may take you to an alien mental land of overwhelming, 24/7 torture; and unlike LLMs, you cannot roll back to an earlier checkpoint. No experiments is worth the risk. Quote: "Please if you have any voice, try to warn the public that drugs like Ketamine, which have important applications in treating mental illness, can have a notable side effect if used the wrong way -- to end a promising life and destroy multiple families, pretty much overnight. And it is a very slow and painful death." This is the least I can do to amplify Felix's last wish. I cannot begin to fathom that in his excruciating pain, Felix mustered every ounce of his being to write down his stories, struggles, and hope that others might be spared from the same fate. Felix didn’t owe the world an apology — yet he gave one. He didn’t need to offer his gratitude — yet he did. It is a testament to the depth of his kindness. Even in his final moment, he thought not only of his pain but of others, just like his research influenced a generation of scientists like myself. Link to doc in the thread. Be mindful: it is very, very emotional to read. Stay safe.