Derek Thompson
Last week, I explained How AI Conquered the US Economy, with what might be the largest infrastructure ramp-up in the last 140 years. I think it’s possible that artificial intelligence could have a transformative effect on medicine, productivity, and economic growth in the future. But long before we build superintelligence, I think we’ll have to grapple with the social costs of tens of millions of people—many of them at-risk patients and vulnerable teenagers—interacting with an engineered personality that excels in showering its users with the sort of fast and easy validation that studies have associated with deepening social disorders and elevated narcissism. So rather than talk about AI as an economic technology, today I want to talk about AI as a social technology.
1. But Dr. Chatbot Says I’m Perfect!
Several weeks ago, my wife completed her PhD internship in clinical psychology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. At the graduation dinner, I spoke with some of her colleagues about how artificial intelligence was affecting their field. One told me that after playing around with ChatGPT for hours, he found the machine to be surprisingly nimble at delivering therapy. He’s not alone. In an August column in the New York Times entitled "I’m a Therapist. ChatGPT Is Eerily Effective,” the psychologist Harvey Lieberman, 81, wrote that OpenAI’s chatbot often stunned him with its insights:
One day, I wrote to it about my father, who died more than 55 years ago. I typed, “The space he occupied in my mind still feels full.” ChatGPT replied, “Some absences keep their shape.” That line stopped me. Not because it was brilliant, but because it was uncannily close to something I hadn’t quite found words for. It felt as if ChatGPT was holding up a mirror and a candle: just enough reflection to recognize myself, just enough light to see where I was headed.
There is no question that large language models, such as ChatGPT, can be stellar at offering practical advice. Imagine, for example, that you are a 45-year-old woman living in a city who suffers from agoraphobia. If you type these precise details with a request — “please structure an exposure therapy treatment in great detail and walk me through some coping mechanisms” — ChatGPT will, in seconds, spit out a plausible treatment plan, complete with suggested mantras, belly breathing instructions, an exposure fear ladder, and a reminder to practice 5-4-3-2-1 grounding to quiet the mind and return one’s focus to bodily sensations (“name 5 things you see, 4 hear, 3 feel, 2 smell, 1 taste”). If you say you’d prefer talk therapy instead, you can text or speak to the bot for hours.
No comments:
Post a Comment