Wednesday, October 4, 2023

Say 'hi' to your new AI therapist

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Can AI chatbots ever replace human therapists?
By Jamie Ducharme
Health Correspondent

In the depths of the pandemic, when in-person health care was reserved for emergencies, I began seeing a therapist online. It felt strange to me then, the idea of confiding in someone I’d only met through a screen—but teletherapy now feels routine to me, as it likely does to the millions of people who use it regularly.

And yet, data suggest many Americans still have reservations about certain aspects of tech-assisted mental-health care—maybe not so much video-chat sessions, but certainly the widening pool of apps and chatbots that use artificial intelligence. In one recent survey, about 80% of U.S. adults said they definitely did not want to mix AI and mental-health care.

It’s hard to say exactly why. But one possible reason, experts told me, is that there's an inherently human quality to therapy that it’s difficult to imagine an algorithm ever duplicating. “Maybe psychotherapy is not really about a particular technique,” one researcher said. “Maybe it’s about co-creating a context in which someone might be growing as a person, exploring themselves, maybe facing existential fears, having someone with whom they can speak about [difficult topics].”

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ONE LAST READ
Indigenous women in Greenland say they were forced to get IUDs as children

Dozens of women from Indigenous communities in Greenland are demanding compensation from the Danish government for allegedly suffering forced insertion of intrauterine devices in the 1960s and 70s. “It was the worst thing I have experienced in my life,” Naja Lyberth told New York Times reporter Isabella Kwai. “I could not tell anyone because of shame and guilt and the fear of being judged by others.”

 

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Today's newsletter was written by Jamie Ducharme and Elijah Wolfson, and edited by Elijah.

 

 
 
 
 
 
 

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