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I do like the site, I just kind of wish that if they’re going to say “stop using AI for therapy” that they would actually go in depth as to what alternative resources (communities with others with similar difficulties, “just tell the therapist”, etc.) are there and why they’re better
I doubt someone using AI for this (especially someone in a state of psychosis) is going to follow the link, see that they’re just saying “AI bad, need regulation”, and change, most they’d probably do is shrug and keep using
It’s addictive, arm the addicts with something to help themselves break free, don’t just make a singular statement
There are no alternatives. Therapy is expensive and, on top of it, there are a lot of bad therapists. No one is going to do it for free, apparently therapists need $250+ an hour. So here we are.
Yep, It was DIY Ai therapy or another decade of drinking alone and wanting to die.
I’ve used AI for therapy, where it was the best therapist I’ve had, and even I still think it needs to be less pervasive in society
A therapist? In this economy??
The main reason would be that an LLM is free and in your pocket. It’s just some people don’t understand how loud those two alarm bells are when it comes to mental health.
A local AI won’t 5150 you. Some people have trauma many therapists won’t touch.
Went to a therapist as a teenager. They locked me away from my family threatened to have me removed from them permanently and I got to watch a child rip his eye out because they refused to give him his right drugs and changed them with no doctor approval.
I will literally never forget the sight
All because my therapist thought a depressed teenager was too much effort to deal with.
I’ll have what he’s having
There are bad therapists. Lots of them. Just like any profession, unfortunately. There’s no way to just make them all be good, despite MSW training programs being fairly good overall, a lot of therapists can take a religious route in without taking past-grad level courses. These are overwhelmingly the “Let’s just talk about your mother for the next 15 years while I bill you” types. Properly trained therapists today are method-driven, using evidence-based modalities to solve specific problems. They can actually fix you. Badly trained therapists can wreak havoc.
We think of children and adolescents as the ones being unable to advocate for ourselves, but a huge proportion of adults can’t advocate for themselves in the mental health arena, meaning they aren’t going to get reliably good outcomes.
AI won’t improve on this problem.
Actually this is an interesting question. Do local AIs not have or use agentic tools or access to the internet? I assume there are local AIs you can give access to the internet, in order to look up answers to your questions. In which case they absolutely could report you via any kind of online reporting tool that is available on wherever police website or hospital website. Whether the police or hospital accept that report and follow through is another matter. But if it can be done on the Internet, an AI can do it.
Hey, my therapist would never tell me to bomb an airport or kill my mother and commit suicide. Obviously the clanker is better for social outcomes.
In what metro area do trains have faux wood panel walls? This is like the 1970s mobile home of public transit.
This reminded me a train I took from Philadelphia to Atlantic City.
Nyc
Tbh therapists keep your data and are obligated to give them to authorities or report you if you act too silly.
You can lobotimize a local LLM to say and act as you please. It’s not better than a therapist, but it’s more private than one.
Don’t think most people who are using llms for therapy are using local.
An example of an appropriate check and balance. If you are planning to hurt yourself or others, an LLM can’t do anything to help you but a therapist can. It’s not if you’re acting “silly”.
Having you sit in a hospital bed for 3 days and strapping you with a hospital bill is not helping.
It is if you were going to leave the session and hurt someone.
Depends on who they assume is going to be hurt to be fair. Forced incarceration does more harm then good here in the usa.
It may have prevented a death, so yes it is helping.
May have prevented a death is kind of ridiculous. Forcing you to stay home forever probably prevented a death or two as well.
You’re not getting committed for nothing, if it comes to that. I’m tired of the myth of therapists being happy to send away their patients for nothing.
Stop giving them meaningful insights into how we think, believe and behave. They aren’t trustworthy with what they already know.
I was curious what the website was about.
[…]
Use this tool to contact your representatives and ask them to:
Hold AI companies legally responsible when their products cause harm, ban the manipulative designs that prey on people — especially kids, and give people control over their own data, face and voice.
[…]
Stop the AI Drift is an initiative from the Center for Humane Technology, in partnership with the Seismic Foundation.
Media inquiries: press@humanetech.com
For all other inquiries contact Casey Shea: casey.shea@humanetech.com[The AI Roadmap: How We Ensure AI Serves Humanity
AI is already reshaping critical areas of society — from our institutions, to our communities, to our individual lives. But a better future with AI is possible. It’s one where AI development supports the genuine needs of the public, and its power is matched with responsibility at every level of society.
No single solution will be enough with AI. We need a platform of approaches. In our new report, we offer seven principles that outline how the technology should be built, deployed, and governed. They’re a roadmap and an invitation. Together, we can take the first steps toward that better future.
AI should be built safely and transparently
AI companies owe a duty of care to the public
AI design should center human well-being
AI should not automate away meaningful work and human dignity
AI innovation should not come at the expense of our rights and freedom
AI should have internationally agreed upon limits
AI power should be balanced in society
[…]
Our History
Our core question — “How can technology better serve society?” — holds a deep lineage at CHT.
In the early 2010s, when Tristan Harris was working as Design Ethicist at Google, he began to notice the detrimental effects of attention-harvesting design — design that was becoming increasingly prevalent on social media sites and digital platforms. Tristan noted that these design choices were deteriorating our ability to focus, weakening our relationships, and impacting our mental health. Concerned about where this could lead society, he created the presentation “A Call to Minimize Distraction & Respect Users’ Attention.” The presentation went viral, and launched the “Time Well Spent” movement.
In 2018, Tristan joined forces with fellow technologists Aza Raskin and Randima Fernando to found the Center for Humane Technology. Since its founding, CHT’s work has remained focused on the incentives that drive consequential technologies. When our organization was first formed, social media was the most consequential technology of our time — and CHT’s work centered on the widespread harms resulting from the race for attention.
In the 2020s, generative AI arrived with an equal, if not greater, consequentiality in society. Given the incentive structures driving AI, and their similarity to social media, CHT’s analysis has naturally expanded to meet this urgent new chapter with AI. Here, CHT offers the same diagnosis — now with the latest wave of technology.
Today, our independent nonprofit is staffed by a team of experts able to identify and analyze the incentives driving these consequential technologies — and develop interventions that pave the path to a better future for society. We work to catalyze a world where technology supports and strengthens the very things that make us human.
At CHT, we are proud to drive meaningful change across all levels of society. Our work increases public awareness around critical tech issues, spurs policy that incentivizes better tech design, and empowers individuals and communities to discover their agency in today’s evolving tech landscape.
Learn more about our impact:
The Social Dilemma
Is it AI drift because it’s dangerous driving the economy into a hole?
Look, AI has problems but this website reminds me of how schizophrenic people write.
Great example of moral grand standing honestly. Say the “right” thing and do nothing of substance while being crazy yourself.
Just because someone is doing the right thing doesn’t mean they are actually helping.
Great example of moral grand standing honestly. Say the “right” thing and do nothing of substance while being crazy yourself.
Just because someone is doing the right thing doesn’t mean they are actually helping.
perfect description of the ‘vote blue’ zealots and how effective their browbeating is tbh
This sort of thing is a lot better suited to a local AI, it isn’t going to suddenly become publicly accessible because a big corporation “accidentally” shared all your data.
And they didn’t stop to question what they’re doing?
Judging the ethics of these requests, though, was beyond the contractors’ remit. Their job, per the reporting, was purely to evaluate how well the Copilot AI fulfilled a prompt, such as whether it enlarged a woman’s breasts enough.
They’re just tiny cogwheels in the machinery. If a specific person doesn’t do the job, there will be somebody else. And the outcome will be the same. Not sure how accurate the article is. They’re missing a lot of interesting information but it’s often people in less privileged countries.
We also happen to know from OpenAI court cases how their systems flag users who drift into AI induced psychosis. And the company also decided to not intervene. They just let these things happen.
If an ICE officer or IDF soldier quits, there will be others to take their place and the outcome will be the same.
They’re missing a lot of interesting information but it’s often people in less privileged countries.
On the one hand, that’s true but doesn’t impact the moral responsibility the workers have, but on the other hand, solidarity goes both ways and people in more privileged countries have not historically shown solidarity with those in less privileged countries.
I agree. And it certainly does not change the moral responsibility. It changes the outcome though. As long as this is how it is, it’s how it is. And there’s no leverage for us there. We all got the short straw. Along with people who are coerced into executing evil.
Sadly the web site does not work on my phone.
