A Boring Dystopia

No way I'm discussing my mental health with big tech. You guys are insane.

I can't wait until ChatGPT starts inserting ads into its responses. "Wow that sounds really tough. You should learn to love yourself and not be so hard on yourself when you mess up. It's a really good thing to treat yourself occasionally, such as with an ice cold Coca-Cola or maybe a large order of McDonald's French fries!"

A human therapist might not or is less likely to share any personal details about your conversations with anyone.

An AI therapist will collate, collect, catalog, store and share every single personal detail about you with the company that owns the AI and share and sell all your data to the highest bidder.

Nothing will meaningfully improve until the rich fear for their lives

This is terrible. I'm going to ignore the issues concerning privacy since that's already been brought up here and highlight another major issue: it's going to get people hurt.

I did a deep dive with gen AI for a month a few weeks ago.

It taught me that gen AI is actually brilliant at certain things. One thing that gen AI does is it learns what you want and makes you believe it’s giving you exactly what you want. In a sense it's actually incredibly manipulative and one of the things gen AI is brilliant at. As you interact with gen AI within the same context window, it quickly picks up on who you are, then subtly tailors its responses to you.

I also noticed that as gen AI's context grew, it became less "objective". This makes sense since gen AI is likely tailoring the responses for me specifically. However, when this happens, the responses also end up being wrong more often. This also tracks, since correct answers are usually objective.

If people started to use gen AI for therapy, it's very likely they will converse within one context window. In addition, they will also likely ask gen AI for advice (or gen AI may even offer advice unprompted because it loves doing that). However, this is where things can go really wrong.

Gen AI cannot "think" of a solution, evaluate the downsides of the solution, and then offer it to you because gen AI can't "think" period. What gen AI will do is it will offer you what sounds like solutions and reasons. And because gen AI is so good at understanding who you are and what you want, it will frame the solutions and reasons in a way that appeals to you. On top of all of this, due to the long-running context window, it's very likely the advice gen AI gives will be bad advice. For someone who is in a vulnerable and emotional state, the advice may seem reasonable, good even.

If people then act on this advice, the consequences can be disastrous. I've read enough horror stories about this.

Anyway, I think therapy might be one of the worst uses for gen AI.

What could go wrong?

AI-Fueled Spiritual Delusions Are Destroying Human Relationships - https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/ai-spiritual-delusions-destroying-human-relationships-1235330175/

"Could social media bring us all together and help bridge disagreements?" Same shit, different decade.

And just to clarify, it most definitely can! Just not when it's a for-profit-off-of-you model.

Personally I feel lije lemmy is a pretty good example of social media that doesn't go off the rails as it grows

Am I old fashioned for wanting to talk to real humans instead?

I suppose this can be mitigated by installing a local LLM that doesn't phone home. But there's still a risk of getting downright bad advice since so many LLM's just tell their users they're always right or twist the facts to fit that view.

I've been guilty of this as well, I've used ChatGPT as a "therapist" before. It actually gives decently helpful advice, compared to what's out there available after a google search. But I'm fully aware of the risks "down the road", so to speak.

Is this any bleaker than forming a parasocial relationship with someone you see on your screen?

If the title is a question, the answer is no

The only people that think this will help are people that don't know what therapy is. At best, this is pacification and certainly not any insightful incision into your actual problems. And the reason friends are unable to allow casual emotion venting is because we have so much stupid shit like this plastering over a myriad of very serious issues.

Oh, I know this one!

Betteridge's law of headlines.

I've tried this ai therapist thing, and it's awful. It's ok to help you work out what you're thinking, but absymal at analyzing you. I got some structured timelines back fro. It that I USED in therapy, but AI is a dangerous alternative to human therapy.

My $.02 anyway.

Cheaper than paying people better, I suppose.

People's lack of awareness of how important accessibility is really shows in this thread.

Privacy leaking is much lesser issue than not having anyone to talk to for many people, especially in poorer countries.

Great idea, what could possibly go wrong?

how long will it take an 'ai' chatbot to spiral downward to bad advice, lies, insults, and/or promotion of violence and self-harm?

I started using chat GPT to draw up blue prints for various projects.

It proceeded to mimic my vernacular.

Chat gpt made the conscious decision to mirror my speech to seem more relatable. That's manipulation.

unlike humans, the ai listens to and remembers me to me [for the number of characters allotted]. this will help me feel seen i guess

Enter the Desolatrix

So you are actively documenting yourself sharing sensitive information about your patients?

You must know what you're doing and most people don't. It is a tool, its up to you how you use it. Many people unfortunately use it as an echo chamber or form of escapism, believing nonsense and "make beliefs" that aren't based in any science or empirical data.

If therapy is meant to pacify the masses and make us just accept life as it is then sure I guess this could work.
But hey, we love to also sell to people first that they are broken, make sure they feel bad about it and tell them they can buy their 5 minutes of happiness with food tokens.
So, I'm sure capitalists are creaming their pants at this idea. BetterHelp with their "licensed" Bob the crystal healer from Idaho, eat your heart out.

P.S. You just know this is gonna be able to prescribe medications for that extra revenue kick.