I often discuss in therapy the problems we face in #FOSS w/ #LLM-backed #AI (no surprise there).
My therapist told me today that one of her colleagues who was early in focusing on LGBTQIA+ therapy is ending their 20 year practice. In their top 3 reasons? AI.
My therapist also noted that she appreciates that I'm now one of her few patients who doesn't come to her with “Well, I asked AI & it said…” slop.
LLMs may have value for medical uses, but warmed over Eliza does not a therapist make.
My therapist had not heard of Eliza. When I explained, she immediately pointed out the trick: mirroring what someone is saying is powerfully validating. It's a tool therapists use to make patients comfortable and feel heard, and it helps build rapport.
But again, it is not in itself therapy.
I suppose some might conclude we are better off with BigTech as therapists rather than Real Humans, & I suppose we aren't too far from USA health insurers refusing to cover human therapy.
We should resist.
@bkuhn Slightly outdated, but I often think about this article from a couple of years back, likening LLMs to fortune telling (which is also basically unlicensed therapy).
https://softwarecrisis.dev/letters/llmentalist/
The details have shifted a bit since they wrote it, but the core idea about asking the audience to carry the real load while faking depth certainly hasn't.
@bkuhn
> My therapist told me today that one of her colleagues who was early in focusing on LGBTQIA+ therapy is ending their 20 year practice. In their top 3 reasons? #AI.
Can you (did your therapist) elaborate on the sequence there? I can imagine various ways “AI” might be attributable for ending a therapist career, but what was the connection in this case?
See my next reply in the thread for more.
As I understood it, basically people are choosing to talk to bots and report it is helping, so they are going to human therapy less.
But it isn't therapy, it's a trick that LLMs pull on us all the time.
That's horrifying @bkuhn, given what we know of how LLMs operate and the absence of a mind there.
It's bad when programmers are abdicating responsibility. It's worse when an LLM demonstrates how awful Google search has become, by comparison. But seeking therapy from a random-sentence generator? I would not have imagined it.
That it has become so prevalent a therapist decides their career may as well end? We are losing the institutions that can actually help people.
Bradley M. Kühn
ptvirgo
Dr Andrew A. Adams #FBPE 🔶
John Colagioia
bignose