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OpenAI says over a million people talk to ChatGPT about suicide weekly

techcrunch.com

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Re: OpenAI says over a million people talk to ChatGPT about suicide weekly

#371

Post by fragmede »

omnimus wrote: post #292
courseofaction wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Replace 'word generator with no intelligence or understanding based on the contents of the internet' with 'for-profit health care system'. In retrospect, from experience, I'd take the LLM.

'not-for-profit healthcare system' has to surely be better better goal/solution than LLM

Lemme get right on vibecoding that! Maybe three days, max, before I'll have an MVP. When can I expect your cheque funding my non-profit? It'll have a quadrillion dollar valuation by the end of the month, and you'll want to get in on the ground floor, so better act fast!

Re: OpenAI says over a million people talk to ChatGPT about suicide weekly

#372

Post by hirvi74 »

NathanKP wrote: post #3

> It is estimated that more than one in five U.S. adults live with a mental illness (59.3 million in 2022; 23.1% of the U.S. adult population). https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/statistics/mental-illness Most people don't understand just how mentally unwell the US population is. Of course there are one million talking to ChatGPT about suicide weekly. This is not a surprising stat at all. It's just a question of what to…

I am honestly surprised it’s only roughly 1 million per week. I would have believed a number at least an order magnitude higher.

Re: OpenAI says over a million people talk to ChatGPT about suicide weekly

#373

Post by josephg »

icetank wrote: post #347
josephg wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most people who have worked with a professional therapist understand intuitively why the only helpful feedback from an LLM to someone who needs professional help is: get professional help. I'm not a therapist, but as I understand it most therapy isn't about suicide, and doesn't carry suicide risk. Most therapy is talking through problems, and helping the patient rewrite old memories and old beliefs using more helpf…

I feel like this begs another question. If there are proven approaches and well established practices of professionals how good would chatgpt be in that profession? After all chstgpt has a vast knowledge base and probably knows a good amount of textbooks on psychology. Then again actually performing the profession probably takes skil and experience chatgpt can't learn.

I think a well trained LLM could be amazing at being a therapist. But general purpose LLMs like ChatGPT have a problem: They’re trained to be far too user led. They don’t challenge you enough. Or steer conversations appropriately.

I think there’s a huge opportunity if someone could get hold of really top tier therapy conversations and trained a specialised LLM using them. No idea how you’d get those transcripts but that would be a wonderfully valuable thing to make if you could pull it off.

Re: OpenAI says over a million people talk to ChatGPT about suicide weekly

#374

Post by basisword »

formerly_proven wrote: post #351
mschuster91 wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If the client needs to be reminded to box breathe and that they're using all or nothing thinking again to get them off of the ledge, does that really require a human who's only available once a week to gently remind them of that when the therapist isn't going to be available for four more days and ChatGPT's available right now? There are 24/7 suicide prevention hotlines at least in many countries in Europe as well…

> There are 24/7 suicide prevention hotlines at least in many countries in Europe as well as US states. My understanding is these will generally just send the cops after you if the operator concludes you are actually suicidal and not just looking for someone to talk to for free.

I mean that's clearly a good thing. If you are actually suicidal then you need someone to intervene. But there is a large gulf between depressed and suicidal and those phone lines can help without outside assistance in those cases.

Re: OpenAI says over a million people talk to ChatGPT about suicide weekly

#375

Post by [deleted] »

ethbr1 wrote: post #333
alex-moon wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect you've never done therapy yourself. Most people who have worked with a professional therapist understand intuitively why the only helpful feedback from an LLM to someone who needs professional help is: get professional help. AIs are really good at doing something to about 80%. When the stakes are life or death, as they are with someone who is suicidal, that is a good example of a time when 80% isn't good en…

You're holding up a perfect status quo that doesn't correspond to reality. Countries vary, but in the US and many places there's a shortage of quality therapists. Thus for many people the actual options are {no therapy} and {LLM therapy}. > This is why we have safety regulations, why we don't let people drive cars that haven't passed tests, build with materials that haven't passed tests, eat food that hasn't passed t…

[deleted]

Re: OpenAI says over a million people talk to ChatGPT about suicide weekly

#376

Post by theblazehen »

Dilettante_ wrote: post #365
theblazehen wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Unless, of course, you count the AI algorithms that TikTok uses to drive engagement, which in turn can cause social contagion... I have noticed that TikTok can detect a depressive episode within ~a day of it starting (for me), as it always starts sending me way more self harm related content

Are you quite certain the depressive episode developed organically and Tiktok reacted to it? Maybe the algorithm started subtly on that path two days before you noticed the episode and you only realize once it starts showing self-harm content?

Hmm, that's quite possible (and concerning to think about)

It had been showing me depressive content for days / weeks beforehand, during the start of the episode, however the sh content only started (Or I only noticed it) a few hours after I had a relapse, so the timing was rather uncanny

Re: OpenAI says over a million people talk to ChatGPT about suicide weekly

#377

Post by jodrellblank »

spookie wrote: post #353
ethbr1 wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're holding up a perfect status quo that doesn't correspond to reality. Countries vary, but in the US and many places there's a shortage of quality therapists. Thus for many people the actual options are {no therapy} and {LLM therapy}. > This is why we have safety regulations, why we don't let people drive cars that haven't passed tests, build with materials that haven't passed tests, eat food that hasn't passed t…

Ok then, the LLMs must pass the same tests and be as regulated as therapists. After all, it should be easy peasy (:

[flagged]

Re: OpenAI says over a million people talk to ChatGPT about suicide weekly

#378

Post by kakacik »

jack_tripper wrote: post #354
ethbr1 wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're holding up a perfect status quo that doesn't correspond to reality. Countries vary, but in the US and many places there's a shortage of quality therapists. Thus for many people the actual options are {no therapy} and {LLM therapy}. > This is why we have safety regulations, why we don't let people drive cars that haven't passed tests, build with materials that haven't passed tests, eat food that hasn't passed t…

>Countries vary, but in the US and many places there's a shortage of quality therapists. Worse in my EU country. There's even a shortage of shitty therapists and doctors, let alone quality ones. It takes 6+ months to get an appointment for a 5 minute checkup at a poorly reviewed state funded therapist, while the good ones are either private or don't accept any new patients if they're on the public system. And ADHD di…

Not sure where you are based, but in general GPs shouldn't be doing psychological evaluation, period. I am in Europe, and this is the default. If you live in utter shithole (even if only health-care wise), move elsewhere if its important for you - it has never been easier, Europe is facing many issues and massive improvement of healthcare is not in the work pipeline, more like the opposite.

You also don't expect butcher to fix your car, those are as close as above (my wife is a GP so I have a good perspective from the other side, including tons of hypochondriac and low-intensity psychiatric persons who are an absolute nightmare to deal with and routinely overwhelm the system so that there isn't enough resources to deal with more serious cases).

You get what you pay for at the end, 'free' healthcare typical for Europe is anyway still paid for one way or another. And if the market forces are so severely distorted (or bureaucracy so ridiculous/corrupt) that they push such specialists away or into another profession, you get healthcare wastelands you describe.

Vote, and vote with your feet if you want to see change, not ideal state but thats reality.

Re: OpenAI says over a million people talk to ChatGPT about suicide weekly

#379

Post by [deleted] »

jacquesm wrote: post #187

HIPAA anybody? (1) they probably shouldn't even have that data (2) they shouldn't have it lying around in a way that it an be attributed to particular individuals (3) imagine that it leaks to the wrong party, it would make the hack of that Finnish institution look like child's play (4) if people try to engage it in such conversations the bot should immediately back out because it isn't qualified to have these convers…

[deleted]

Re: OpenAI says over a million people talk to ChatGPT about suicide weekly

#380

Post by wonderwonder »

consp wrote: post #160
wonderwonder wrote: post #40

Most people would really benefit from going to the gym. I'm not trying to downplay serious mental illness as its absolutely real. For many though just going to the gym several times a week or another form of serious physical exertion can make a world of difference. Since I started taking the gym seriously again I feel like a new man. Any negative thoughts are simply gone. (The testosterone helps as well) This is comi…

> give it a try If you have mental issues that is not as simple as you let it sound. I'm not arguing the results of exercise but I am arguing the ease of starting with a task which requires continuous effort and behavioural changes.

sure but if we always put things off because its hard or stressful then we will never make any progress. People are free to put barriers in front of everything or they can just go ahead and do it. Its your life, and your responsibility
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