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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]These debates over whether to use AI as a substitute for a human therapist has had an unforeseen but useful result: it reveals that most human therapists are frauds & a waste of your money. Carolyn Hax, are you reading this?[/quote]

Agreed. I also think it's introducing some important conversations about what therapy is for, and what makes a therapist "good."

I do think AI could be used to design an effective CBT program to address a lot of common mental health issues -- anxiety and mild or moderate depression. There were already shifts toward virtual, group based programs for CBT as a cost-effective model to deliver one of the most proven effective mental health approaches to more people. AI could be a step beyond that. CBT, ultimately, is effective as a self-directed program, but most people need guidance and people struggling with mental health especially need support.

But do they need to spend an hour a week talking about their childhood with someone who is very likely to be mediocre-to-bad at talk therapy? In my personal experience: no. It can sometimes be helpful to talk to a person, even a crap therapist, when you are really struggling with depression. But the initial benefit of talking to a person and taking action rapidly disappears as the person is revealed to be inept or fraudulent. Using a robot administering an effective program is preferable to this because at least you go in knowing what you are getting.

A truly skilled therapist is worth their weight in gold, which is why they often cost about that much. Plus there are too few of them, certainly not enough to actually treat all the people who could benefit from talk therapy. The threat of AI may be the push the industry needs to figure out how to recruit and train truly good therapists. I'd much rather see an effective human therapist than use a CBT bot. But I'd rather use a CBT bot than go to yet another bad therapist. Hopefully the industry gets this and starts looking at how they train and develop therapists because what they are doing now isn't working for the most part.

[b]Who knows, maybe AI could be used to train therapists[/b].[/quote]

Welcome to the matrix.[/quote]

Garbage in, garbage out [/quote]

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