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Illinois limits the use of AI in therapy and psychotherapy

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Illinois limits the use of AI in therapy and psychotherapy

#211

Post by 999900000999 »

AlecSchueler wrote: post #205
999900000999 wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but the number one stressor for the vast majority of people is money in one way or another. If you have a spare 9600$ a year to be heard you're doing very well. Remember, we're talking about a country where people skip insulin. Back during my second eviction I had a friend listen to me whine on the phone for hours. That's a debt I can never repay, I definitely didn't have health insurance or a spare 800$ a mont…

> Remember, we're talking about a country where people skip insulin. Ah, I'm in the Netherlands. I didn't realise we were only talking about the US. I know the story is about Illinois but I thought the critique of therapy was intended to be broader. It goes without saying that basic necessities like food and housing come first for health, mental and otherwise, I'm sorry that they're so uncertain in America.

Oh no I'm only speaking about the American context. I guess you're in a magical Utopia where people don't skip essential medicines because they can't come up with the co-pay even if they have insurance.

Or the health insurance company will outright refuse to cover what your doctor prescribes so you need to materialize a spare 1000$.

Too sick to work, time to cut off your medicare because you failed the work requirements.

Even if you find a therapist that works, they can move out if your insurance network. Or you switch to a new job that offers different insurance your therapist can't accept.

I know during my second eviction I didn't have 800$ a month. So what use is it. Do only upper middle class people have problems worthy of consideration?

Re: Illinois limits the use of AI in therapy and psychotherapy

#212

Post by [deleted] »

lr4444lr wrote: post #149
olalonde wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's good about reducing options available for therapy? If the issue is misrepresentation, there are already laws that cover this.

It's not therapy. It's a simulated validating listening, and context-lacking suggestions. There is no more therapy being provided by an LLM than there is healing performed by a robot arm that slaps a bandage on your arm if you were to put it in the right spot and push a button to make it pivot toward you, find your arm, and spread it lightly.

[deleted]

Re: Illinois limits the use of AI in therapy and psychotherapy

#213

Post by squishington »

thrown-0825 wrote: post #180
999900000999 wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Most people shop around for therapists that align with their values anyways. They are really paying $800 / month to have their feelings validated and receive a diagnosis that absolves them from taking ownership over their emotions and actions.

Please don't spread misinformation like this. It can stop people from seeking professional help. When people seek therapy, they are taking ownership over their emotions and actions, because they want to change their internal state in a healthy way (as opposed to escaping negative feelings with substance abuse, for example). Earlier this year I would suffer flight responses in public due to the effects of PTSD. I was able to significantly mitigate this (nearly gone) by seeing a therapist who practises EMDR. And sometimes people do need their feelings validated, which is an important part of healing from abuse. It's about rebuilding trust.

Re: Illinois limits the use of AI in therapy and psychotherapy

#214

Post by AlecSchueler »

999900000999 wrote: post #211
AlecSchueler wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Remember, we're talking about a country where people skip insulin. Ah, I'm in the Netherlands. I didn't realise we were only talking about the US. I know the story is about Illinois but I thought the critique of therapy was intended to be broader. It goes without saying that basic necessities like food and housing come first for health, mental and otherwise, I'm sorry that they're so uncertain in America.

Oh no I'm only speaking about the American context. I guess you're in a magical Utopia where people don't skip essential medicines because they can't come up with the co-pay even if they have insurance. Or the health insurance company will outright refuse to cover what your doctor prescribes so you need to materialize a spare 1000$. Too sick to work, time to cut off your medicare because you failed the work requireme…

Your response feels quite snarky but I understand you're speaking from a place of emotion after your own difficult experiences.

Here in The Netherlands people with less money can get access to therapy with assistance from the state. I've had to do it myself and it cost me around 300 euros per year to see 3 different providers for 3 kinds of therapy; the rest of the costs were covered by the state.

I wouldn't call it a magical utopia as it works via a system of mutual social support, not magic, but it does seem relatively utopic in comparison to what you describe.

Re: Illinois limits the use of AI in therapy and psychotherapy

#215

Post by maxehmookau »

Good.

Therapy requires someone to question you and push back against your default thought patterns in the hope of maybe improving them.

"You're absolutely right!" in every response won't help that.

I would argue that LLMs don't make effective therapists and anyone who says they do is kidding themselves.

Re: Illinois limits the use of AI in therapy and psychotherapy

#216

Post by 999900000999 »

AlecSchueler wrote: post #214
999900000999 wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh no I'm only speaking about the American context. I guess you're in a magical Utopia where people don't skip essential medicines because they can't come up with the co-pay even if they have insurance. Or the health insurance company will outright refuse to cover what your doctor prescribes so you need to materialize a spare 1000$. Too sick to work, time to cut off your medicare because you failed the work requireme…

Your response feels quite snarky but I understand you're speaking from a place of emotion after your own difficult experiences. Here in The Netherlands people with less money can get access to therapy with assistance from the state. I've had to do it myself and it cost me around 300 euros per year to see 3 different providers for 3 kinds of therapy; the rest of the costs were covered by the state. I wouldn't call it…

It's ok.

My first reply was flagged for pointing out an unaffordable treatment has no real use.

I forgot this is a forum where 800$ a month is a trivial amount of money.

No snark intended. I've been to Europe a few times, as far as I'm concerned The Netherlands, Belgium, and the UK are essentially utopias.

Not having to play the health insurance game, significantly lower crime rates, actual worker rights. No place is perfect, but try being poor in America. Nothing is closer to hell.

Re: Illinois limits the use of AI in therapy and psychotherapy

#217

Post by knuppar »

mensetmanusman wrote: post #44

What if it works a third as well as a therapists but is 20 times cheaper? What word should we use for that?

Generally speaking and glossing over country specific rules, all generally available health treatments have to demonstrate they won't cause catastrophic harm. This is a harness we simply can't put around LLMs today.

Re: Illinois limits the use of AI in therapy and psychotherapy

#218

Post by malcolmgreaves »

guappa wrote: post #206
hathawsh wrote: post #13

Here is what Illinois says: https://idfpr.illinois.gov/content/dam/soi/en/web/idfpr/news... I get the impression that it is now illegal in Illinois to claim that an AI chatbot can take the place of a licensed therapist or counselor. That doesn't mean people can't do what they want with AI. It only means that counseling services can't offer AI as a cheaper replacement for a real person. Am I wrong? This sounds good to…

But didn't trump make it illegal to make laws to limit the use of ai?

Why do you think a president had the authority to determine laws?

Re: Illinois limits the use of AI in therapy and psychotherapy

#219

Post by Ukv »

inetknght wrote: post #159
Ukv wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Relevant RCT results I saw a while back seemed promising: https://ai.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/AIoa2400802 > can the patient use the AI therapist on their own devices and without any business looking at the data and without network connection? Keep in mind that many patients won't have access to the internet. Agree that data privacy would be one of my concerns. In terms of accessibility, while availability to those w…

> In terms of accessibility, I don't think it should be a blocker on such tools existing I think that we should solve for the former (which is arguably much easier and cheaper to do) before the latter (which is barely even studied).

Not certain which two things you're referring to by former/latter:

"solve [data privacy] before [solving accessibility of LLM-based therapy tools]": I agree - the former seems a more pressing issue and should be addressed with strong data protection regulation. We shouldn't allow therapy chatbot logs to be accessed by police and used as evidence in a crime.

"solve [accessibility of LLM-based therapy tools] before [such tools existing]": It should be a goal to improve further, but I don't think it makes much sense to prohibit the tools based on this factor when the existing alternative is typically less accessible.

"solve [barriers to LLM-based therapy tools] before [barriers to human therapy]": I don't think blocking progress on the latter would make the former happen any faster. If anything I think these would complement each other, like with a hybrid therapy approach.

"solve [barriers to human therapy] before [barriers to LLM-based therapy tools]": As above I don't think blocking progress on the latter would make the former happen any faster. I also don't think barriers to human therapy are easily solvable, particularly since some of it is psychological (social anxiety, or "not wanting to be a burden").

Re: Illinois limits the use of AI in therapy and psychotherapy

#220

Post by skeezyboy »

csense wrote: post #100

Consider the following: - A therapist may disregard professional ethics and gossip about you - A therapist may get you involuntarily committed - A therapist may be forced to disclose the contents of therapy sessions by court order - Certain diagnoses may destroy your life / career (e.g. airline pilots aren't allowed to fly if they have certain mental illnesses) Some individuals might choose to say "Thanks, but no tha…

ai just summarizes text, its not like speaking to a person
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