‘Suicide Pod’ Inventor Creating AI-Powered Device for Couples to Die Together

The inventor of a suicide gas chamber capsule, called a “Sarco pod,” is creating a new version designed for couples who want to die together. 

News of the tandem death device comes a year after the 3D-printed Sarco pod, which allows a user to trigger a nitrogen release, was used for the first time, the New York Post reported Tuesday. The pod gained national attention after a 64-year-old American woman used it in Switzerland, sparking a police investigation. Authorities later ruled out intentional homicide.

Philip Nitschke, the Australian-born physician who invented Sarco, said development of a pod for couples is underway and will use an AI-enabled model, according to the report.  

“I’m not suggesting everyone’s going to race forward and say: ‘Boy, I really want to climb into one of those things,’” Nitschke told the DailyMail. “But some people do.”

Nitschke told the outlet he has already received interest from couples who are interested in the device, including one in Britain who reportedly told him they want to “die in each other’s arms.”

The pod for couples is being called the “Double Dutch” Sarco and will be large enough to fit two people. It will also require both people to press their buttons at the same time, or the gas release will not activate, per the report.   

“The original Sarco capsule works by flooding its chamber with nitrogen, rendering the occupant unconscious within seconds and causing death shortly afterward,” the report details. 

Nitschke said the new device will include artificial intelligence that will supposedly assess a user’s mental capacity. Users would undergo an online evaluation performed by an AI avatar rather than a traditional psychiatric evaluation, according to the report. 

“Traditionally, that’s done by talking to a psychiatrist for five minutes, and we did that,” Nitschke said of the first suicide pod case. 

“But with the new Double Dutch, we’ll have the software incorporated, so you’ll have to do your little test online with an avatar, and if you pass that test, then the avatar tells you you’ve got mental capacity,” he added. 

A user who passes the evaluation would only have a 24-hour window to die in the pod. After that time period, a user would have to take another evaluation to let the device kill them. 

Nitschke said most of the parts of the pod for couples have already been created, and he expected it to be completed within months.

However, the future of the technology depends on whether or not Swiss authorities will approve the device. 

On the day the Sarco was first used, Switzerland’s interior minister Elisabeth Baume-Schneider notably said that it was “not legal.” 

While the initial investigation ended without charges for individuals involved, the debate over assisted suicide and the gas chamber pods is just beginning, per the report.

Katherine Hamilton is a political reporter for Breitbart News. You can follow her on X @thekat_hamilton.