I can't recommend AI therapists in remotely good faith, I have no money for therapy and I'm not wise enough to take my own advice, its far too fun to whine to a homebrewed to hell 'therapist' since no way am I putting out my trauma to a poor data rater out in the world on one of the big public bots, especially they may be my coworkers . Dear chatbot therapist <insert most horrible, horrible childhood trauma and violence here>, no one needs to read that shit at our wages.

The worst part is the damn chatbot though my homebrew Dr. Quack is only running on a 13b is better than some RL therapists I've had, but the therapist I'm thinking of forgot my name, forgot what patient I was, and was trying to encourage me to join her weird culty church every moment she got. Or therapists immediately turning on me soon as I figured I was trans, that's a common one too.

Write a diary. Talk to yourself every now and then. Same effect as the AI has on your mental health. A diary also remembers all your personal details. No need to burn down the planet in the process.

Could AI therapy be a solution to the mental health crisis?

No.

Glad we had this talk.

Keep seeing this and keep feeling the need to say it. If your gonna befriend an LLM, run it on a local machine with ollama so the capatlists cant start charging you hundreds of dollars a month for your only social outlet.

Or just dont depend on an LLM for social needs.

I warned yall. Shits off my conscious now 🙂

"When Teddy Ruxbin was needed most, he was nowhere to be found"

Someone smiling at me while giving me the most dehumanizing, dismissive advice imaginable... I bet this person uses the term "nuerospicy" but refrains from saying the r-word.

Who needs a psychologist when talking to something that makes you feel like you've talked to a phychologist will do.

“Wow thats so sad to hear that you got laid off, but did you know that 87% of jobs are created by the top 5% companies? Try seeing the sunny side of life 🔆“

This is the saddest fucking world we live in

Using an online AI run by capitalists who will definitely use your data both to train the AI and to target ads at you specifically for this kind of thing is bleak.

Using a locally run instance of DeepSeek with no internet connection for this is just pretty sad.

No human cares. Tell your secrets to robot. Robot will make you feel better by providing more accurate advertising through our 2500 affiliate companies. We fund this service by selling your personal data profile to your insurance providers, employers, helicopter parents, dating prospects, creeps and every company ever.

I feel like the bleakness in this isn’t so much that AI will role play a therapist, more that mental health care is so inaccessible that people are turning to AI as a substitute. A cyberpunk dystopian opium of the masses.

So long and we're back to ELIZA

Obviously no supports from a person who actually did some training AND can actually be effective at helping people deal with mental health is terrible. I'm glad Emma has an actual psychologist but obviously she seems like she isn't getting enough supports and so has turned to ChatGPT presumably because at $20 a month (or free, which gets turned into training data)

ChatGPT is no substitute. It is at most a funhouse mirror of exactly what you put in it along with whatever Sam Altman has figured out causes maximal engagement. It is the smooth pool of Narcissus. The passive reflection of your own emotion and experiences can be done without the sycophantic AI telling you you're a genius and whatever else obsequious mewling it's doing.

Reminds me of something...