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| ▲ | miki123211 5 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Unless you have Bill Gates money, you don't have access to a mental health professional (much less your mental health professional who knows your life situation) when a girlfriend dumps you over text at 1AM. And that's when you may need one most. People want to talk to their therapist after an argument with their husband or when their boss fires them, not Friday after next. | | |
| ▲ | burningChrome 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | >> Unless you have Bill Gates money, you don't have access to a mental health professional I'm not sure where you live. I know almost all colleges in the US have walk in free mental health counseling, along with free telesupport. My company has onsite mental health professionals who you can talk to or call at any time. There are free mental health clinics all over my city. There's mental health professionals who did daily outreach with the homeless and addicts in our city. This doesn't even start to list all of the available apps you can download from your health care provider for free resources that are available to you. This might have been true 30-40 years ago, but even over the last decade during and after covid, healthcare providers have put a huge emphasis on mental health and counseling to give people an abundance of resources to help them - when they need help, not in four days when someone is available. | | |
| ▲ | ipaddr an hour ago | parent [-] | | "My company has onsite mental health professionals who you can talk to or call at any time." Can't see that coming to bite you. |
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| ▲ | lmc 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Decent therapists advocate for cultivating resilience for such situations. | | |
| ▲ | kbelder 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | So do decent parents and friends. | |
| ▲ | p-e-w 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Decent physicians do the same: “And the next time you feel your heart going out of rhythm, just hold your breath, and remember I will see you again a couple of weeks from now.” Ah wait, no they don’t, because “resilience” is a worthless concept in emergencies, both mental and physical. | | |
| ▲ | lmc 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | The point is to try and limit what becomes an emergency in the first place. Having an argument with a spouse shouldn't necessitate an immediate call to a therapist. | |
| ▲ | thunderfork 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Decent physicians recommend exercise among other preventative measures to reduce the likelihood of emergencies. Therapists will likewise encourage you to build up resilience so that "a relationship ended" is not a crisis, and also build support networks of real people who can really come visit you when you need urgent support. There are also, of course, crisis hotlines. |
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| ▲ | threetonesun 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I do not have Bill Gates money but I think you're describing a friend more than a therapist. Finding anyone awake at 1AM is going to be hard, but even for Linus Torvald money you can find a therapist who will take a quick call in the morning. | |
| ▲ | rottenface583 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | In the olden days in these and other situations, you hit the bar, got shitfaced, told your lifes story to a bottle and maybe banged a geezer/cougar that happened to be there. Something like that. | | | |
| ▲ | newswasboring 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | The need is not in question, the solution is. This annoying glaze machine is not it for mental health tasks. | | |
| ▲ | nish__ 5 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Most people have friends and family to "glaze" them anyway. I don't see it as a major danger. Also, it's gotten better with the glazing lately anyway. | | |
| ▲ | hatsix 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | The danger is in the replacement. Confiding in others builds a web of trust. Talking about a break-up with a friend builds a relationship, and the next time that friend needs someone, they know you're an option. It's economics, borrowing and trading emotional support. AI as confidant destroys that economy. |
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| ▲ | p-e-w 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Tens of millions of people disagree with you. What makes you think you know better than them what is right for them? | | |
| ▲ | z0r 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | This line of reasoning doesn't hold up for many harmful habits that people voluntarily partake in. It's OK for someone to believe that using an AI as an approximate therapist might be a bad idea, especially in light of the many publicly documented cases of AI feeding delusional thoughts and encouraging suicide. |
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| ▲ | redsocksfan45 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | [dead] |
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| ▲ | Cthulhu_ 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Exactly why people turn to AI, which I think is good enough for "casual" mental health advice (the kind people can do themselves by reading self-help books or talking with empathic friends). Arguably it's safer than talking to strangers online because now that they've been doing it for a few years, they will (or should) have plenty of safeguards, unlike people on the internet who can talk out of their ass (like me!) and give bad advice. In theory the LLM will escalate or recommend professional help if they're out of their depth. | | |
| ▲ | officeplant 5 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | >In theory the LLM will escalate or recommend professional help if they're out of their depth. Given there have been multiple suicides driven by LLMs. I really doubt that. | | |
| ▲ | tt24 an hour ago | parent [-] | | Fascinating perspective - any technology that has caused >0 deaths is a dead end and has no chance of improvement. | | |
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| ▲ | newswasboring 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > In theory the LLM will escalate or recommend professional help if they're out of their depth. LLMs can barely identify gaps in their own software designs, and they are provably good at making software. | |
| ▲ | micromacrofoot 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | In practice we know that LLMs have aided in suicide, so what they should do in theory doesn't matter. | | |
| ▲ | voakbasda 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | And how many people can it be credited for saving from self harm? Probably countless more than it has harmed, if I had to bet. |
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| ▲ | fn-mote 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Those two sentences seem to be a non-sequitor. Unavailability is one reason people would turn to AI. Ease of access is another. | | | |
| ▲ | 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | [deleted] | |
| ▲ | nekusar 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | I've yet to find anybody in mental health profession who is "good", aside psychiatrists and their drug prescriptions. And that's only cause of gatekeeping drugs, not because they're good either. The worst problem with mental health care is that there is no "you're better" metric. There is if your bone breaks and heal. There is for surgery of various things. But mental health seems to follow Parkinson's Law, and expands to the number of sessions available, whether it helps or not. And at X00$/session, yeah gets costly quick. So if something trained on all psychiatric literature costs $20/month subscription, that's a substitute therapist. Whether it's clinically trained or not. |
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