The mental health AI chatbot made for real life

[DancesWithWife]

I just watched a TED talk ( TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design) about an AI Chatbot for mental health concerns. I found the information interesting in the fact that when a person is having a crisis they could "talk" about it. I can see the practical side of it. It's just in the beginning stages but could be a valuable tool for many. We live in interesting times. 

 

[Bible_Schulz]

I from my point of view, as a person who works on a daily basis with high tech tools and several AI services think that there will me a market for AI in metal health therapy.

 

Some people will like to use a computer generated AI to talk with. And some not. I think there is no better way to be helped with a real human mind who is understandig all facets of human modes of expression.

See u in the matrix

Edited Thursday at 12:51 PM by Bible_Schulz

[Katty]

I've used ChatGPT to give ideas from the perspective of a cognitive behavioural therapist, and it's given a lot of ideas for journaling, etc. I stopped doing it after a few queries though, because I have a difficult time trusting it.
If you talk to a human, you know there's a strict code of confidentiality, and you can trust they won't share the information you give to third parties. You can't say that for AI's. Your information is likely going onto a server and where after that? Who knows? It's like any aspect of big tech, if you don't want something about yourself to be widely known it's best not to share it. It's very likely that the information you share will end up in a database to be used for future data sets to train future versions of ChatGPT. Yes, you can be relatively anonymous, but it's an AI, it's not like a program can't potentially use your profile and cross reference to publicly available information to make a determination of what your identity is, and when information is available on a server that has access to the internet, even if it's not sold to major third parties, it can still be hacked. Even though it wasn't an AI company, 23 and me, went bankrupt and it caused a lot of people were concerned about what happened to their data. I wonder if we're providing our ChatGPT accounts, if we have one, with more information than is what's contained in our DNA?

 

There is also another concern: how much people are starting to feel bonded with mere computer algorithms. Mark Zuckerberg straight up said that AI is a good solution for loneliness. Yeah, but Zuckerberg has something to gain from people taking that approach, and, in the long run that can do more harm than good. I do fear that if we continue to feel increasingly bonded with computer programs, we may, over time, lose our humanity. With a therapist, one of the elements that is therapeutic is knowing there is a human there who can understand how we feel. Sometimes that's all a person needs. But, AI just gives you the illusion of a human who understands without the reality. I wonder what potential psychological harm can come, particularly to future generations who grew up with chatbots.

 

That being said, CBT is really expensive, so there could be some benefit to low income people who need to overcome issues, if they feel comfortable with the possibility of third parties having access with their information, seek sources for advice given, especially on more sensitive issues, and realize that they are not talking to a human but an aggregate of information presented to sound human based on a composite of human generated content. 

Edited Thursday at 04:22 PM by Katty