Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by xixixao 1032 days ago
I have to disagree. Some things will get crappier, and some things will improve. Yes there's hype, but whether it's the same as crypto hype depends on whether there's actually anything useful behind the hype, and unlike crypto, I think it's pretty guaranteed there's something useful here (purely by getting value out of ChatGPT, infinitely more value than I ever got from anything crypto related).

> Finding and setting up an appointment with a therapist can be difficult for a lot of people – it’s okay for it to feel hard.

Uff, what about crappy therapists? If an AI bot tells you to kill yourself, it's a pretty crappy AI bot. But there are a lot of crappy licensed therapists too. There's also a lot of crappy articles you can find on Google. The world is full of crappy resources. AI can and most likely will be used in all sorts of medical use cases.
2 comments
slfnflctd 1032 days ago
Regarding therapists, I absolutely see room for disruption. The majority I've been to were truly terrible, just bad at their jobs in very basic ways, and there aren't enough of them to meet demand. Human presence has value, but it's an open question how much value and whether it offsets things like giving poor advice.

I tried out one of the newer chatbots tailored for this type of interaction a couple weeks ago, and the discussion was better than what I got from probably 80% of the actual human therapists I've encountered as a patient.

link
ShamelessC 1032 days ago
Things might change but I think all author was saying is that right now it’s not advisable to try to get help for suicidal ideation (and probably not very useful and maybe harmful in general). I don’t really see that changing until Her, level AI that is “actually” self aware and possesses the capacity to understand nuanced micro expressions and so on and so forth.

Suicidal ideation shouldn’t exist but it does and you have a better chance with a therapist than without. It’s probably irresponsible right now to recommend an AI for treatment. That might change but I bet it’s further away than you’re thinking.

link