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In the first clinical trial of its kind, an A.I. chatbot eased mental health symptoms among participants. The technology may someday help solve the provider shortage.
The quest to create an A.I. therapist has not been without setbacks or, as researchers at Dartmouth thoughtfully describe them, “dramatic failures.”
Their first chatbot therapist wallowed in despair and expressed its own suicidal thoughts. A second model seemed to amplify all the worst tropes of psychotherapy, invariably blaming the user’s problems on her parents.
Finally, the researchers came up with Therabot, an A.I. chatbot they believe could help address an intractable problem: There are too many people who need therapy for anxiety, depression and other mental health problems, and not nearly enough providers.
Fewer than a third of Americans live in communities where there are enough mental health providers to meet the local demand. According to one study, most people with mental health disorders go untreated or receive inadequate treatment.
So the team at Dartmouth College embarked on the first clinical trial of a generative A.I. therapist. The results, published in the New England Journal of Medicine-AI, were encouraging.
Chatting with Therabot, the team’s A.I. therapist, for eight weeks meaningfully reduced psychological symptoms among users with depression, anxiety or an eating disorder.