Article by Stanford HAI: “Millions of Americans are affected by mental illness every year, yet the cost of therapy remains out of reach for many, and a shortage of licensed clinicians means that even those with insurance often wait months for an appointment. Into this void has stepped a rapidly expanding market of AI-powered tools, including chatbots that provide therapeutic counseling and apps that offer cognitive behavioral therapy exercises on demand. Children and adults also seek out general-purpose chatbots like ChatGPT and “companion” bots such as those offered by Character.ai and Replika in times of loneliness or emotional distress.
There are promising potential upsides to the use of AI in mental health care: greater access, lower cost, tools that could extend the reach of an overstretched system, and a form of social and emotional support for people experiencing loneliness. But these promises also entail risk. Absent clear regulation and standardized third-party testing, these tools risk delivering substandard care and putting users in danger. News headlines abound about minors developing unhealthy emotional attachments to chatbots, users in crisis receiving harmful or inadequate responses, and research showing that general-purpose AI chatbots commonly miss warning signs.
AI’s role in mental health care is growing fast, and legislators are struggling to keep pace. To date, most legislative activities have happened in states, which have introduced more than 140 bills related to AI use in mental health contexts. Federal legislation is pending, but so far has been narrowly focused on protection of minors. This fragmented policy landscape is further hindered by a perpetually lagging evidence base: Many purpose-built AI mental health tools lack validated outcomes and representative samples, and are rarely evaluated with rigorous study designs. Meanwhile, the models powering general-purpose chatbots update so rapidly that safety research findings quickly become outdated…(More)”.
