I interviewed Kim for a potential article for humanity+ magazine about her quest to get charitable funds to pay for cryonics. The article was never published because very shortly after my interview Alcor decided to fully fund Kim. Here is part of the article:
Kim Suozzi’s Cold and Lonely Journey To Outrun Brain Cancer
Like any sensible girl diagnosed with a fatal disease, 23-year-old Kim Suozzi is making arrangements to be cryogenically preserved. Kim has brain cancer, and although she's participating in a clinical trial for an experimental treatment, she told me that without cryonics her chance of survival would be basically zero.
As hard as it should be to believe, there are actually some people in Kim's position who forgo cryonics to accept certain death even though these people don't want to die. There are cancer patients who would spend every penny they have plus a bunch of taxpayer dollars, and then (if it were necessary) crawl across broken glass for a traditional treatment that would give them only a few percentage points chance of survival, but who have no interest in cryonics. Although I don't think all of these people should be forced into cryonics, at the very least they should be compelled to take a sanity test to determine if they're capable of making rational medical decisions. After all, the norm in Western society is to treat a preference for suicide as a sign of mental illness.
Of course, in reality it's people who sign up for cryonics , such as this author, who are considered mentally suspect. Fewer than 3,000 people have ever registered for cryonics despite the fact that over a hundred million have surely heard of it. We consider death, especially when it strikes someone who should be only in the first third of her life, a horrible, heartbreaking tragedy. Yet cryonics, which offers a means of escaping or at least postponing death, is something almost no one opts for, making Kim Suozzi a socially brave pioneer rather than an ordinary cancer patient.
If you think that, as futurist Ray Kurzweil writes, the Singularity is near (Kurzweil estimates 2045) then it won't take too long before cryonics could be used to revive you. Kurzweil has signed up for cryonics, and Kim told me that the plausibility of Kurzweil's analysis is a big part of why she is interested in cryonics.
If you think that, as futurist Ray Kurzweil writes, the Singularity is near (Kurzweil estimates 2045)
James, you've seen this study of past AI predictions, this independent grading of Kurzweil's predictions, and the stagnation of computer serial speeds and neuroimaging resolution, right? Hans Moravec has already made several predictions of AI progress based on hardware progress that have been falsified too.
Kim Suozzi was a neuroscience student with brain cancer who wanted to be cryonically preserved but lacked the funds. She appealed to reddit and a foundation was set up, called the Society for Venturism. Enough money was raised, and when she died on the January 17th, she was preserved by Alcor.
I wasn't sure if I should post about this, but I was glad to see that enough money was raised and it was discussed on LessWrong here, here, and here.
Source
Edit: It looks like Alcor actually worked with her to lower the costs, and waived some of the fees.
Edit 2: The Society for Venturism has been around for a while, and wasn't set up just for her.