Tali Kleerekoper

But Weizenbaum’s turn toward critique started with the reception of ELIZA, which he built to imitate Rogerian therapy (an approach that often relies on mirroring patients’ statements back to them). Although he was explicit that ELIZA had nothing to do with psychotherapy, others, such as Stanford psychiatrist Kenneth Colby, hailed it as a first step... See more

These technological advances come at a time when the need for mental health care is particularly acute: According to a report from the National Alliance on Mental Illness, one in five adults in the United States experienced mental illness in 2020. And the numbers continue to climb.

David Krakauer, president of the Santa Fe Institute, has a useful framework for describing the tension between assistance and agency that underlies both AI and mental health. Some technologies help us think, like the abacus, or a map. They open up new ways of thinking that we develop over time. Eventually we might not need the technologies any more... See more

recent research offers a reassuring perspective—that AI-delivered therapeutic interventions have reached a level of sophistication such that they’re indistinguishable from human-written therapeutic responses.