Brings new perspective to the modern American adage "find someone who cares".
A therapy chatbot for depression
21–30 of 77 posts
Re: A therapy chatbot for depression
#22There seems to be a new push for technological problems to social illnesses, and it consistently boggles my mind how so many smart "experts" really think people engaging more with computers/phones/AI instead of, you know, engaging more with actual people will solve any kind of social ill.
A decent CBT therapist can charge $150+ per hour, and personal change can take years of constant, ongoing effort. For most people right now, it's going to be an app or no treatment at all, particularly if for people who are only mildly impaired by their distress. Besides, it's not an either/or proposition. Personally, I don't think that chatbots are all that useful (I've been building them as a large part of my job f…
There isn't enough computing power on Earth to parse the stuff I threw at therapist when I did CBT (which waw a super good investment for me).
Re: A therapy chatbot for depression
#23You can easily fool people into thinking they're talking with a person even though they're talking with a machine. But I wonder, can you do the same if they know they're talking with a machine? Or even, could you make yourself feel a program is human? Simpler question: with a sufficiently-smart story generator, could you enjoy it if you knew it was procedurally generated? I feel that I couldn't. But I'd love to be wr…
> Simpler question: with a sufficiently-smart story generator, could you enjoy it if you knew it was procedurally generated? I feel that I couldn't.
I feel like this might commit you to having some amount of conflict with "death of the author"?
If one cares that the writing was written by a person, and not just transcribed by a person, but composed by a person, it seems to me like one probably cares that the writing was done with an intent.
I don't see a reason that one would care about whether the writing was made with an intent, in a way that plays a role in whether one enjoys it, but not care at all about what that intent was.
So, I would expect that anyone who couldn't, or at least most people who couldn't, enjoy a work of fiction if they knew it was procedurally generated, probably would care about the intent of the author in writing what they are reading.
I also generally care about that, but I think I sometimes enjoy procedurally generated works, though this might be largely due to my knowing about the intent behind the writing of the code that produced the procedurally generated content, which includes substantial bits of literal text to include in the output, so..
Re: A therapy chatbot for depression
#24You can easily fool people into thinking they're talking with a person even though they're talking with a machine. But I wonder, can you do the same if they know they're talking with a machine? Or even, could you make yourself feel a program is human? Simpler question: with a sufficiently-smart story generator, could you enjoy it if you knew it was procedurally generated? I feel that I couldn't. But I'd love to be wr…
>You can easily fool people into thinking they're talking with a person even though they're talking with a machine.
Citation needed. After 5 minutes of chatting with a robot, you conclude it's either an insane clown or a robot.
Re: A therapy chatbot for depression
#25Couldn't they have picked a better platform than Facebook to try this out on, given all of the research into the effect of social media on one's mental state?
> given all of the research into the effect of social media on one's mental state?
Given that research, wouldn't that make Facebook be the best platform for an anti-depression chat-bot? That's where the users will be.
Re: A therapy chatbot for depression
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
A decent CBT therapist can charge $150+ per hour, and personal change can take years of constant, ongoing effort. For most people right now, it's going to be an app or no treatment at all, particularly if for people who are only mildly impaired by their distress. Besides, it's not an either/or proposition. Personally, I don't think that chatbots are all that useful (I've been building them as a large part of my job f…
This is the right idea; it isn't about digitally replacing treatment. It's entirely about augmenting it. This kind of technology in medicine is about enabling human doctors to treat patients better with more (hopefully meaningful) data points at their fingertips. You might be surprised how far behind the medical industry is when it comes to reaching out to the smartphone generation.
It's going to be about both. It's >alreadyThere are therapists, and there are books on CBT. This is an extension of the second, more than the first. It's really nothing more than an electronic version of a choose-your-own-adventure book
Re: A therapy chatbot for depression
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
A decent CBT therapist can charge $150+ per hour, and personal change can take years of constant, ongoing effort. For most people right now, it's going to be an app or no treatment at all, particularly if for people who are only mildly impaired by their distress. Besides, it's not an either/or proposition. Personally, I don't think that chatbots are all that useful (I've been building them as a large part of my job f…
Something isn't adding up here... if this is supposed to be supplemental therapy to talking with an actual human, but instead the actual human part is nixed and it is used as the entirety of therapy (i.e. outside of it's prescribed and tested usage) are we not worried about the negative externalities of replacing human contact with machines for curing social ills? That's not even touching where you've just pointed ou…
There is room for therapists, therapist assisting-applications and stand alone tools for therapy, just like there is today. This app is replacment for self-help books, not therapists.
Moreover, CBT and DBT, which is where therapy is currently focused for most issues, involves a lot of mental re-tooling and training.
This part of therapy is like learning any other process, and is approached and practiced like any other skill.
Re: A therapy chatbot for depression
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
A decent CBT therapist can charge $150+ per hour, and personal change can take years of constant, ongoing effort. For most people right now, it's going to be an app or no treatment at all, particularly if for people who are only mildly impaired by their distress. Besides, it's not an either/or proposition. Personally, I don't think that chatbots are all that useful (I've been building them as a large part of my job f…
Something isn't adding up here... if this is supposed to be supplemental therapy to talking with an actual human, but instead the actual human part is nixed and it is used as the entirety of therapy (i.e. outside of it's prescribed and tested usage) are we not worried about the negative externalities of replacing human contact with machines for curing social ills? That's not even touching where you've just pointed ou…
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Re: A therapy chatbot for depression
#29Couldn't they have picked a better platform than Facebook to try this out on, given all of the research into the effect of social media on one's mental state?
I am picturing a Slack integration - but maybe that's just too depressing to contemplate.
Re: A therapy chatbot for depression
#30There seems to be a new push for technological problems to social illnesses, and it consistently boggles my mind how so many smart "experts" really think people engaging more with computers/phones/AI instead of, you know, engaging more with actual people will solve any kind of social ill.
That's not self-evidently a bad thing.
For example, here is an article about Ellie, a South-Carolina University virtual therapist used in the treatment of PTSD. It notes some explicit advantages which at least complement humans:
“One advantage of using Ellie to gather behaviour evidences is that people seem to open up quite easily to Ellie, given that she is a computer and is not designed to judge the person”, Morency explains to news.com.au
...
Morency stresses she is not a substitute for a human therapist. Rather, she is used in tandem with a doctor as a data-gatherer, able to break down walls which may exist due to a patient’s unwillingness to disclose sensitive information to a human.
As Morency explains, “The behavioural indicators that Ellie identifies will be summarised to the doctor, who will integrate it as part of the treatment or therapy. Our vision is that Ellie will be a decision support tool that will help human doctors and clinicians during treatment and therapy.”
- http://www.news.com.au/technology/innovation/meet-ellie-the-...