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Chatgpt would have been a better therapist for me than the online therapist I had a few years ago. I really felt like I was talking to a bot that didn’t parse t

Chatgpt would have been a better therapist for me than the online therapist I had a few years ago. I really felt like I was talking to a bot that didn’t parse the things I was saying.

mansoon 4y ago
I may be in the minority here, but I’d rather have chatgpt than a severely underpaid therapist with too many clients.
- haswell 4y ago
  The human connection aspect of therapy is one of the primary reasons therapy works for me. Trust is a huge factor, and trust can only be built by establishing a relationship. Trust isn’t just about “I can tell this person anything”, but also trust that the therapist understands me well enough to ask me the right questions, contextual to my experience in life, and in therapy. Trust that they are looking at my facial expressions and are noticing when I’m in distress even if I don’t realize I am in that moment. Trust that the person I’m speaking to has dedicated their life to help/support others, and that the things I say aren’t all being fed to some system that is analyzing every word. Obviously YMMV, and this depends on why you’re in therapy, but one of the things that I’m deeply grateful for in therapy is that I know the person I’m speaking to deeply cares. Maybe a bot can someday fill in for those times when you just need to have a conversation with someone other than yourself, or want someone to identify and help you see the thinking traps you’re falling into. But I can’t help but feel such a bot should not be thought of as a therapist, any more than Tesla’s “Full Self Driving” feature should be considered fully autonomous. I think it’s a misnomer.
  - mansoon 4y ago
    Trust is dead after what happened.
    - haswell 4y ago
      Trust in that specific product? No doubt, but that has little to do with the question of whether I’d rather speak with ChatGPT or a real therapist.
- sterlind 4y ago
  I'd rather have ChatGPT than a severely overworked/underpaid therapist, but I'd rather have a friend's shoulder to cry on than ChatGPT. But I'd also rather have a smart, empathic therapist I click with than oversharing with my friends. Therapy for me is like, a psychic connection. I take someone deep into my headspace and they help me sort things out, exploring the inside of my mind. ChatGPT just makes that a loopback, a mirror that lets me see my mind in a new light sometimes. A real, useful therapist.. it's not scientific, but there's a connection I feel, and the possibility of emotions and thoughts being transmitted across. a human connection.
  - haswell 4y ago
    > it's not scientific, but there's a connection I feel, and the possibility of emotions and thoughts being transmitted across. And I think it’s worth mentioning that “not scientific” just means science does not currently have much to say about the mechanisms in play, which is meaningful difference from a conclusion that there’s anything “woo woo” going on. Mirror neurons are fascinating.
- staticman2 4y ago
  Do you prefer ChatGPD or the idea of ChatGPD? It's one thing to like the idea of a super A.I. that does therapy, but I don't think ChatGPD can do basic things like ask you how your progress has been since last week's session.
brianwawok 4y ago
There are two dimensions here. Good vs bad therapists, and therapist that can get through to you vs not. Good vs bad you can solve with properly curated ratings from clients. How to get through to you seems a harder problem. Sometimes it clicks and sometimes it’s a thud.
- arkitaip 4y ago
  Regarding your second dimension, the "good" thing about ChatGPT is that you can request a new answer if the previous one doesn't vibe with you... Also, you could probably create infinite therapist personas that are tailored to your specific needs.
  - staticman2 4y ago
    I don't know why'd you claim ChatGPD can create infinite therapists. I just tried asking it to be a tough guy ex gang member therapist from the bronx who became a therapist and while it introduced itself that way it quickly dropped the personality and recited generic therapy advise. I told it I was afraid of spiders. After it gave some advice and dropped the bronx character I asked it "Have you ever been scared of anything?" And it said "As a machine learning model, I do not have personal experiences or emotions." Which shows it is not flexible.
    - leplen 4y ago
      It shows that you bounced off one of the artificial rails openAI added to minimize PR risk. The underlying model is certainly flexible enough to answer that question, it's just been deliberately crippled to try and make it seem less anthropomorphic.
      - staticman2 4y ago
        But it broke character before it hit that rail and started talking like a magazine article, not a ex gang member turned therapist from the Bronx.
x86x87 4y ago
I mean, at this point why bother interacting with other people at all? Let's just have a collective of a few hundred chatGpt bots and pretend we're all a society. I am horrified of how easily we are dismissing things that are super hard because "ai can do it better". Therapy is one of those things were result vary widely and depend on the patient, the therapist and the setting. You ain't gonna get that from a machine - not with the way we are doing AI today.
- voakbasda 4y ago
  I’d much rather wait for an AI solution. To wit, I would rather tweak a set of configuration options than go through the process of dealing with the mental health industry. It is overpriced, unreliable, and unworthy of the trust that it requires. I would sooner trust a machine.
  - x86x87 4y ago
    Yes and no. You're assuming that everyone has the mental and physical ability to deal with something like this. Most people are not technical enough for really really basic tech tasks. It is rare that you would find someone who is a good therapist and can write software. Even rarer that someone would actually invest the time to build you the software you could tweak.
    - voakbasda 4y ago
      I believe in the singularity, so I guess I meant to say AGI. Such an AI will learn to be a therapist the same way that we do. Even if it’s only as smart as a human, I would trust it more than a human. Because, yeah, I don’t trust humans to program an AI that I could ever trust, unless the model and training data are all made fully available for independent analysis. Tweaking the model would be telling it to favor certain paradigms over others.
      - x86x87 4y ago
        If (and it's a huge if) we ever get AGI we're either 1) screwed and the machines will remeber us like we remember cave people - ie footnote in the history "books" or 2) we will have a human + machine symbiosis where the AI will literally remove all out flaws. Either way, therapy will be useless. Also, IMHO we are at least 500 years from anything that resembles AGI - if it ever happens.

Chatgpt would have been a better therapist for me than the online therapist I had a few years ago. I really felt like I was talking to a bot that didn’t parse the things I was saying.

mansoon 4y ago

I may be in the minority here, but I’d rather have chatgpt than a severely underpaid therapist with too many clients.

haswell 4y ago
The human connection aspect of therapy is one of the primary reasons therapy works for me. Trust is a huge factor, and trust can only be built by establishing a relationship. Trust isn’t just about “I can tell this person anything”, but also trust that the therapist understands me well enough to ask me the right questions, contextual to my experience in life, and in therapy. Trust that they are looking at my facial expressions and are noticing when I’m in distress even if I don’t realize I am in that moment. Trust that the person I’m speaking to has dedicated their life to help/support others, and that the things I say aren’t all being fed to some system that is analyzing every word. Obviously YMMV, and this depends on why you’re in therapy, but one of the things that I’m deeply grateful for in therapy is that I know the person I’m speaking to deeply cares. Maybe a bot can someday fill in for those times when you just need to have a conversation with someone other than yourself, or want someone to identify and help you see the thinking traps you’re falling into. But I can’t help but feel such a bot should not be thought of as a therapist, any more than Tesla’s “Full Self Driving” feature should be considered fully autonomous. I think it’s a misnomer.
- mansoon 4y ago
  Trust is dead after what happened.
  - haswell 4y ago
    Trust in that specific product? No doubt, but that has little to do with the question of whether I’d rather speak with ChatGPT or a real therapist.
sterlind 4y ago
I'd rather have ChatGPT than a severely overworked/underpaid therapist, but I'd rather have a friend's shoulder to cry on than ChatGPT. But I'd also rather have a smart, empathic therapist I click with than oversharing with my friends. Therapy for me is like, a psychic connection. I take someone deep into my headspace and they help me sort things out, exploring the inside of my mind. ChatGPT just makes that a loopback, a mirror that lets me see my mind in a new light sometimes. A real, useful therapist.. it's not scientific, but there's a connection I feel, and the possibility of emotions and thoughts being transmitted across. a human connection.
- haswell 4y ago
  > it's not scientific, but there's a connection I feel, and the possibility of emotions and thoughts being transmitted across. And I think it’s worth mentioning that “not scientific” just means science does not currently have much to say about the mechanisms in play, which is meaningful difference from a conclusion that there’s anything “woo woo” going on. Mirror neurons are fascinating.
staticman2 4y ago
Do you prefer ChatGPD or the idea of ChatGPD? It's one thing to like the idea of a super A.I. that does therapy, but I don't think ChatGPD can do basic things like ask you how your progress has been since last week's session.

brianwawok 4y ago

There are two dimensions here. Good vs bad therapists, and therapist that can get through to you vs not. Good vs bad you can solve with properly curated ratings from clients. How to get through to you seems a harder problem. Sometimes it clicks and sometimes it’s a thud.

arkitaip 4y ago
Regarding your second dimension, the "good" thing about ChatGPT is that you can request a new answer if the previous one doesn't vibe with you... Also, you could probably create infinite therapist personas that are tailored to your specific needs.
- staticman2 4y ago
  I don't know why'd you claim ChatGPD can create infinite therapists. I just tried asking it to be a tough guy ex gang member therapist from the bronx who became a therapist and while it introduced itself that way it quickly dropped the personality and recited generic therapy advise. I told it I was afraid of spiders. After it gave some advice and dropped the bronx character I asked it "Have you ever been scared of anything?" And it said "As a machine learning model, I do not have personal experiences or emotions." Which shows it is not flexible.
  - leplen 4y ago
    It shows that you bounced off one of the artificial rails openAI added to minimize PR risk. The underlying model is certainly flexible enough to answer that question, it's just been deliberately crippled to try and make it seem less anthropomorphic.
    - staticman2 4y ago
      But it broke character before it hit that rail and started talking like a magazine article, not a ex gang member turned therapist from the Bronx.

x86x87 4y ago

I mean, at this point why bother interacting with other people at all? Let's just have a collective of a few hundred chatGpt bots and pretend we're all a society. I am horrified of how easily we are dismissing things that are super hard because "ai can do it better". Therapy is one of those things were result vary widely and depend on the patient, the therapist and the setting. You ain't gonna get that from a machine - not with the way we are doing AI today.

voakbasda 4y ago
I’d much rather wait for an AI solution. To wit, I would rather tweak a set of configuration options than go through the process of dealing with the mental health industry. It is overpriced, unreliable, and unworthy of the trust that it requires. I would sooner trust a machine.
- x86x87 4y ago
  Yes and no. You're assuming that everyone has the mental and physical ability to deal with something like this. Most people are not technical enough for really really basic tech tasks. It is rare that you would find someone who is a good therapist and can write software. Even rarer that someone would actually invest the time to build you the software you could tweak.
  - voakbasda 4y ago
    I believe in the singularity, so I guess I meant to say AGI. Such an AI will learn to be a therapist the same way that we do. Even if it’s only as smart as a human, I would trust it more than a human. Because, yeah, I don’t trust humans to program an AI that I could ever trust, unless the model and training data are all made fully available for independent analysis. Tweaking the model would be telling it to favor certain paradigms over others.
    - x86x87 4y ago
      If (and it's a huge if) we ever get AGI we're either 1) screwed and the machines will remeber us like we remember cave people - ie footnote in the history "books" or 2) we will have a human + machine symbiosis where the AI will literally remove all out flaws. Either way, therapy will be useless. Also, IMHO we are at least 500 years from anything that resembles AGI - if it ever happens.