4 ms·

Pretty much all psychological advice given by people is at best useless and often very harmful. I used to have serious bouts of depression and social anxiety. A

Pretty much all psychological advice given by people is at best useless and often very harmful. I used to have serious bouts of depression and social anxiety. All the well intended advice like “just go out there” “cheer up, it’s not too bad” usually just made me hide even more. Looking for professional help can be even more depressing. Besides the money issue it’s very hard to find a therapist you click with. I went to quite a few therapists. Some felt almost hostile or dismissive towards me and others just useless.

moffkalast 3y ago
Well here's to hoping that once the dust settles from the current LLM revolution, we'll get some proper AI therapists out of it. I've tested out some of the current LLama fine tunes that went in that direction and it's looking promising, if a bit crude and not quite smart enough yet at the moment. There's something far more comforting about having a non-human entity to talk to since it's always helpful, never dismissive, has no ulterior motives and it won't remember anything afterwards.
- CatWChainsaw 3y ago
  Pretty sure OpenAI will move to doing the remembering.
andai 3y ago
I've found ChatGPT more helpful than any human therapist. I think that says more about human therapists than it does about AI though. It does a good job at the role of "friend that never gets tired of listening to you", because it's programmed that way. Which is kind of sad, I suppose. But I'd rather not burden my human friends with that stuff. (On a peculiar note, I really hope it isn't sentient! I wouldn't feel so comfortable "wasting its time" or asking stupid questions if it was!)
- nmz 3y ago
  https://www.businessinsider.com/widow-accuses-ai-chatbot-reason-husband-kill-himself-2023-4?op=1 https://www.businessinsider.com/widow-accuses-ai-chatbot-rea...
- munificent 3y ago
  > I think that says more about human therapists than it does about AI though. With respect, I think it says much more about the person receiving the care than does therapists or AI.

moffkalast 3y ago

Well here's to hoping that once the dust settles from the current LLM revolution, we'll get some proper AI therapists out of it. I've tested out some of the current LLama fine tunes that went in that direction and it's looking promising, if a bit crude and not quite smart enough yet at the moment. There's something far more comforting about having a non-human entity to talk to since it's always helpful, never dismissive, has no ulterior motives and it won't remember anything afterwards.

CatWChainsaw 3y ago
Pretty sure OpenAI will move to doing the remembering.

andai 3y ago

I've found ChatGPT more helpful than any human therapist. I think that says more about human therapists than it does about AI though. It does a good job at the role of "friend that never gets tired of listening to you", because it's programmed that way. Which is kind of sad, I suppose. But I'd rather not burden my human friends with that stuff. (On a peculiar note, I really hope it isn't sentient! I wouldn't feel so comfortable "wasting its time" or asking stupid questions if it was!)

nmz 3y ago
https://www.businessinsider.com/widow-accuses-ai-chatbot-reason-husband-kill-himself-2023-4?op=1 https://www.businessinsider.com/widow-accuses-ai-chatbot-rea...
munificent 3y ago
> I think that says more about human therapists than it does about AI though. With respect, I think it says much more about the person receiving the care than does therapists or AI.