> What if it works a third as well as a therapists but is 20 times cheaper?

When there's studies that show it, perhaps we might have that conversation.

Until then: I'd call it "wrong".

Moreover, there's a lot more that needs to be asked before you can ask for a one-word summary disregarding all nuance.

- can the patient use the AI therapist on their own devices and without any business looking at the data and without network connection? Keep in mind that many patients won't have access to the internet.

- is the data collected by the AI therapist usable in court? Keep in mind that therapists often must disclose to the patient what sort of information would be usable, and whether or not the therapist themselves must report what data. Also keep in mind that AIs have, thus far, been generally unable to competently prevent giving dangerous or deadly advice.

- is the AI therapist going to know when to suggest the patient talk to a human therapist? Therapists can have conflicts of interest (among other problems) or be unable to help the patient, and can tell the patient to find a new therapist and/or refer the patient to a specific therapist.

- does the AI therapist refer people to business-preferred therapists? Imagine an insurance company providing an AI therapist that only recommends people talk to therapists in-network instead of considering any licensed therapist (regardless of insurance network) appropriate for the kind of therapy; that would be a blatant conflict of interest.

Just off the top of my head, but there are no doubt plenty of other, even bigger, issues to consider for AI therapy.

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Ukv 4 days ago | parent [-]

Relevant RCT results I saw a while back seemed promising: https://ai.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/AIoa2400802

> can the patient use the AI therapist on their own devices and without any business looking at the data and without network connection? Keep in mind that many patients won't have access to the internet.

Agree that data privacy would be one of my concerns.

In terms of accessibility, while availability to those without network connections (or a powerful computer) should be an ideal goal, I don't think it should be a blocker on such tools existing when for many the barriers to human therapy are considerably higher.

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lupire 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

I see an abstract and a conclusion that is an opaque wall of numbers. Is the paper available?

Is the chatbot replicatable from sources?

The authors of the study highlight the extreme unknown risks: https://home.dartmouth.edu/news/2025/03/first-therapy-chatbo...

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inetknght 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

> In terms of accessibility, I don't think it should be a blocker on such tools existing

I think that we should solve for the former (which is arguably much easier and cheaper to do) before the latter (which is barely even studied).

	▲	Ukv 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		Not certain which two things you're referring to by former/latter: "solve [data privacy] before [solving accessibility of LLM-based therapy tools]": I agree - the former seems a more pressing issue and should be addressed with strong data protection regulation. We shouldn't allow therapy chatbot logs to be accessed by police and used as evidence in a crime. "solve [accessibility of LLM-based therapy tools] before [such tools existing]": It should be a goal to improve further, but I don't think it makes much sense to prohibit the tools based on this factor when the existing alternative is typically less accessible. "solve [barriers to LLM-based therapy tools] before [barriers to human therapy]": I don't think blocking progress on the latter would make the former happen any faster. If anything I think these would complement each other, like with a hybrid therapy approach. "solve [barriers to human therapy] before [barriers to LLM-based therapy tools]": As above I don't think blocking progress on the latter would make the former happen any faster. I also don't think barriers to human therapy are easily solvable, particularly since some of it is psychological (social anxiety, or "not wanting to be a burden").