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'It cannot provide nuance': UK experts warn AI therapy chatbots are not safe

(www.theguardian.com)
165 points distalx | 2 comments | 10 May 25 15:35 UTC | HN request time: 0.809s | source
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hy555 ◴[10 May 25 17:02 UTC] No.43947151[source]▶
Throwaway account. My ex partner was involved in a study which said these things were not ok. They were paid not to publish by an undisclosed party. That's how bad it has got.

Edit: the study compared therapist outcomes to AI outcomes to placebo outcomes. Therapists in this field performed slightly better than placebo, which is pretty terrible. The AI outcomes performed much worse than placebo which is very terrible.

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neilv ◴[10 May 25 17:36 UTC] No.43947393[source]▶
Sounds like suppressing research, at the cost of public health/safety.

Some people knew what the tobacco companies were secretly doing, yet they kept quiet, and let countless family tragedies happen.

What are best channels for people with info to help halt the corruption, this time?

(The channels might be different than usual right now, with much of US federal being disrupted.)

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hy555 ◴[10 May 25 17:48 UTC] No.43947496[source]▶
Start digging into psychotherapy research and tearing their papers apart. Then the SPR. Whole thing is corrupt to the core. A lot of papers drive public health policy outside the field as it's so vague and easy to cite but the research is only fit for retraction watch.
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neilv ◴[10 May 25 17:55 UTC] No.43947550[source]▶
Being paid to suppress research on health/safety is potentially a different problem than, say, a high rate of irreproducible results.

And if the alleged payer is outside the field, this might also be relevant to the public interest in other regards. (For example, if they're trying to suppress this, what else are they trying to do. Even if it turns out the research is invalid.)

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1. cjbgkagh ◴[10 May 25 19:03 UTC] No.43948013[source]▶
I figured it would be related in that it's a form of p-hacking. Do 20 studies, one gives you the 'statistically significant' results you want, suppress the other 19. Then 100% of published studies support what you want. Could be combined with p-hacking within the studies to compound the effect.
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2. genewitch ◴[11 May 25 00:56 UTC] No.43950325[source]▶
97% of all scientists named steve agree that global warming is happening!