Men are opening up about mental health to AI instead of humans

https://discuss.online/post/22748703

Men are opening up about mental health to AI instead of humans - Discuss Online

A profound relational revolution is underway, not orchestrated by tech developers but driven by users themselves. Many of the 400 million weekly users of ChatGPT are seeking more than just assistance with emails or information on food safety; they are looking for emotional support. “Therapy and companionship” have emerged as two of the most frequent applications for generative AI globally, according to the Harvard Business Review. This trend marks a significant, unplanned pivot in how people interact with technology.

Better than nothing I guess. Obviously it’s a privacy nightmare. But therapy is hard to reach nowadays and I’ve noticed that many men are reluctant to make that step. It’d be preferable if they did, but if ChatGPT can at least give an outlet for the emotions then it might just save a few people. Seeing men demolish themselves because they’re too ashamed to seek help is something I’ve unfortunately seen quite often. Even though I’m aware of this I’ve still waited till it was way too late because I subconsciously didn’t want to give in to the “weakness”. I hate that men are conditioned this way, it costs lives.

It’s possible to reduce the privacy issues by using API’s with a local frontend. Given that the later usually caters to companies instead of end consumers they actually have simple opt-outs for information logging.

Requires a bit of know-how, and you’ll be paying for your llm per use (not that bad actually, I’ve personally averaged <10$/yr in api costs) but at least you get to have all your personal issues on your local device instead.

For a chatGPT-like experience you probably want the ooga booga web generation ui but there’s others too.

Personally I also ran some distilled versions of DeepSeek locally, though I’d imagine that isn’t really possible for most people.