My work offered an AI chatbot therapist. Like to, I’m not putting all my negative feelings into a company sponsored LLM to fucking have it say, “no relax guy, it’ll be OK.” Like it’s a fucking clanker. It doesn’t have feelings. It’s not fucking real. It’s a slap in the face that they even offer it.
Well, I’m sure someone who uses “clanker” wouldn’t need therapy anyway.
Seriously though, I doubt the health implications or claims about the efficacy of AI therapists, but we can’t just ignore the fact that there are people who use it, which means there’s something about it that makes it accessible or preferable to a human therapist.
If you’ve ever had to get a psychotherapist, you know that it is prohibitively expensive for a large number of people, and that a human therapist may not actually be capable of treating you because of personal incompatibility; which often results in retraumatization in patients who are seeking therapy for particularly traumatic or sensitive issues. Since much of the value in therapy is learning management strategies that, while not standard, are often consistent across different practitioners, they do not necessarily need to come from a therapist to learn what they are (even if the practice of them does need one).
I think if there is a need for it, that need is a consequence of the deeply dysfunctional, exploitative, and isolating system we live under, and I don’t think I’d ever accept it as a genuine alternative to human therapists. But, we can’t dismiss it out of hand if there are people who say it is useful for them and when we can’t maintain a system that can guarantee them access to treatment.
The problem with people saying they are useful, is that it is nearly impossible to tell if that is actually true. If someone is mentally unhealthy there are many ways to make them feel better, but not all of those will actually help the underlying issue, they could even make it worse. A lot of people seem to equate happiness and mental health, when it is very possible to be happy and mentally ill at the same time.
This is especially worrisome with AI because it is literally designed to say what it “thinks” it wants you to hear. It has no real training in any of the disciplines a psychologist or therapist needs to be effective. You can’t just apply a cut and paste answer to a patient, you need to understand their personality, their history, and a multitude of other things to be a really effective therapist. The answer to this issue is increasing access to real mental health treatment, not giving snake oil to millions of people.
My work offered an AI chatbot therapist. Like to, I’m not putting all my negative feelings into a company sponsored LLM to fucking have it say, “no relax guy, it’ll be OK.” Like it’s a fucking clanker. It doesn’t have feelings. It’s not fucking real. It’s a slap in the face that they even offer it.
Well, I’m sure someone who uses “clanker” wouldn’t need therapy anyway.
Seriously though, I doubt the health implications or claims about the efficacy of AI therapists, but we can’t just ignore the fact that there are people who use it, which means there’s something about it that makes it accessible or preferable to a human therapist.
If you’ve ever had to get a psychotherapist, you know that it is prohibitively expensive for a large number of people, and that a human therapist may not actually be capable of treating you because of personal incompatibility; which often results in retraumatization in patients who are seeking therapy for particularly traumatic or sensitive issues. Since much of the value in therapy is learning management strategies that, while not standard, are often consistent across different practitioners, they do not necessarily need to come from a therapist to learn what they are (even if the practice of them does need one).
I think if there is a need for it, that need is a consequence of the deeply dysfunctional, exploitative, and isolating system we live under, and I don’t think I’d ever accept it as a genuine alternative to human therapists. But, we can’t dismiss it out of hand if there are people who say it is useful for them and when we can’t maintain a system that can guarantee them access to treatment.
The problem with people saying they are useful, is that it is nearly impossible to tell if that is actually true. If someone is mentally unhealthy there are many ways to make them feel better, but not all of those will actually help the underlying issue, they could even make it worse. A lot of people seem to equate happiness and mental health, when it is very possible to be happy and mentally ill at the same time.
This is especially worrisome with AI because it is literally designed to say what it “thinks” it wants you to hear. It has no real training in any of the disciplines a psychologist or therapist needs to be effective. You can’t just apply a cut and paste answer to a patient, you need to understand their personality, their history, and a multitude of other things to be a really effective therapist. The answer to this issue is increasing access to real mental health treatment, not giving snake oil to millions of people.