“Traditional therapy requires me to physically go to a place, to drive, eat, get dressed, deal with people,”
YES! Those are the things therapy for anxiety and depression is supposed to help you with! If the AI “Therapist” won’t help with those problems, it’s not there to actually help you.
Eating, getting dressed, and talking with real people are all good things for your mental health. Typing on a keyboard doesn’t help, otherwise we’d be the least depressed generation ever.
I tried doing online text-based therapy once. On top of it’s not the same thing, it was also just the absolute worst way to go about doing therapy, and that was with a human.
Bit of a catch-22 though, isn’t it? You want people to get better at doing those things, but they have to do those things in the first place to reach the people that help them get better at it.
I see nothing wrong with having AI chatbots in addition to traditional therapists. As with many AI applications they’re at their best when they’re helping professionals to get more done.
I’m not sure why, but you seem to have posted this yesterday but it didn’t show up until an hour ago. Your instance may be having some issues.
I do get where you’re coming from with all that, but the act of going to therapy itself is an achievement a patient can benefit from, and should be considered from the start. If that truly isn’t possible for someone, voice calls from a real therapist are a reasonable next step.
Also, the original question was, “Can AI replace therapists?”. I can see some meaningful benefits coming from an AI assisting a therapist, but that’s not what I was getting at. AI alone really just feels like a bandaid on a bullet wound, when applying pressure or a tourniquet is also available.
No, the original question is “can AI therapists do better than the real thing?” And yes, they can do better at specific things. That doesn’t make them a replacement, though.
Bandaids aren’t much use for a bullet wound, but bandaids are still good to have and useful in other situations. You wouldn’t use a tourinquet for a papercut.
“Getting to a place” being a barrier may be a bit of a stretch (unless it’s like really far and interferes with your work, etc.), but actually deciding to do therapy, what kind, finding a good therapist, and setting up the first appointment - that can be quite a massive barrier.
It’s also straight up not true that it’s the only way to get traditional therapy! I had therapy over the phone for months to treat PTSD and it was something I wish I’d done years ago. A human therapist was able to understand how my trauma was affecting me in ways I didn’t see until later.
The idea of entrusting any of that to a LLM as anything other than a temporary stopgap is horrifying, because they’re nowhere near sophisticated enough to deal with something as complicated as the needs of someone who is having mental health problems. If you wouldn’t trust a LLM for advice on how to treat your cancer then you shouldn’t trust this either.
YES! Those are the things therapy for anxiety and depression is supposed to help you with! If the AI “Therapist” won’t help with those problems, it’s not there to actually help you.
Eating, getting dressed, and talking with real people are all good things for your mental health. Typing on a keyboard doesn’t help, otherwise we’d be the least depressed generation ever.
I tried doing online text-based therapy once. On top of it’s not the same thing, it was also just the absolute worst way to go about doing therapy, and that was with a human.
Bit of a catch-22 though, isn’t it? You want people to get better at doing those things, but they have to do those things in the first place to reach the people that help them get better at it.
I see nothing wrong with having AI chatbots in addition to traditional therapists. As with many AI applications they’re at their best when they’re helping professionals to get more done.
I’m not sure why, but you seem to have posted this yesterday but it didn’t show up until an hour ago. Your instance may be having some issues.
I do get where you’re coming from with all that, but the act of going to therapy itself is an achievement a patient can benefit from, and should be considered from the start. If that truly isn’t possible for someone, voice calls from a real therapist are a reasonable next step.
Also, the original question was, “Can AI replace therapists?”. I can see some meaningful benefits coming from an AI assisting a therapist, but that’s not what I was getting at. AI alone really just feels like a bandaid on a bullet wound, when applying pressure or a tourniquet is also available.
No, the original question is “can AI therapists do better than the real thing?” And yes, they can do better at specific things. That doesn’t make them a replacement, though.
Bandaids aren’t much use for a bullet wound, but bandaids are still good to have and useful in other situations. You wouldn’t use a tourinquet for a papercut.
“Getting to a place” being a barrier may be a bit of a stretch (unless it’s like really far and interferes with your work, etc.), but actually deciding to do therapy, what kind, finding a good therapist, and setting up the first appointment - that can be quite a massive barrier.
Don’t discount how paralyzing executive dysfunction can be when all you have to do is ‘go to a place’.
I’m sure it can, but then how does one even have the appointment set up in the first place? Which is a much harder part of the process.
I haven’t been into a therapists office in 7 years now, and I’ve been in active therapy for all 7 of the intervening years.
It’s also straight up not true that it’s the only way to get traditional therapy! I had therapy over the phone for months to treat PTSD and it was something I wish I’d done years ago. A human therapist was able to understand how my trauma was affecting me in ways I didn’t see until later.
The idea of entrusting any of that to a LLM as anything other than a temporary stopgap is horrifying, because they’re nowhere near sophisticated enough to deal with something as complicated as the needs of someone who is having mental health problems. If you wouldn’t trust a LLM for advice on how to treat your cancer then you shouldn’t trust this either.