Can chatbots replace human doctors? Some startups — and patients — claim they can. But it’s not exactly settled science.
One Study found that 80% of people who used OpenAI’s ChatGPT for mental health advice considered it a good alternative to regular therapy, while a separate study found that 80% of people who used OpenAI’s ChatGPT for mental health advice considered it a good alternative to regular therapy. Report found that chatbots can be effective in reducing some symptoms related to depression and anxiety. On the other hand, It is well established The relationship between therapist and client – in other words, the human relationship – is one of the best predictors of success in mental health treatment.
Three entrepreneurs — Dustin Klebe, Lucas Wolf, and Chris Eberly — are in the pro-chatbot therapy camp. Their startup, SoniaProvides an “AI therapist” that users can talk to or text with via an iOS app on a number of topics.
“To some extent, building an AI therapist is like developing a drug, in the sense that we are building a new technology rather than repackaging an existing one,” Sonea CEO Klebe told TechCrunch in an interview.
The three met in 2018 while studying computer science at ETH Zurich and moved to the US together to pursue graduate studies at MIT. Shortly after graduation, they reunited to launch a startup that could incorporate their shared passion for scalable technology.
That startup became Soniya.
Sonia leverages several generative AI models to analyze and respond to what users say during “therapy sessions” in the app. Applying techniques from cognitive behavioral therapy, the app, which charges users $20 per month or $200 per year, assigns “homework” aimed at furthering home insights from conversations and visualizations designed to help identify top stressors.
Klebe claims that SONIA, which has not received FDA approval, can deal with issues ranging from depression, stress and anxiety to relationship problems and poor sleep. Klebe says that for more serious scenarios such as people contemplating violence or suicide, SONIA has “additional algorithms and models” to detect “emergency situations” and direct users to a national hotline.
Somewhat worryingly, none of Sonea’s founders have a background in psychology. But Klebe says the startup consults with psychologists, recently hired a cognitive psychology graduate, and is actively recruiting a full-time clinical psychologist.
“It is important to emphasize that we do not consider human therapists or any company providing physical or virtual mental healthcare services run by humans to be our competitors,” Klebe said. “For each response generated by Sonia, there are approximately seven additional language model calls happening in the background to analyze the situation from multiple different therapeutic perspectives in order to adjust, optimize, and personalize the therapeutic approach chosen by Sonia.”
What about privacy? Can users rest assured that their data is not being compromised in any way? Weak clouds Or were Sonia’s models trained without her knowledge?
Klebe says Sonia is committed to storing only the “minimal” personal information needed to deliver therapy: the user’s age and name. However, he did not say where, how or for how long Sonia stores the conversation data.
Sonia, which has about 8,000 users and is backed by $3.35 million from investors including Y Combinator, Moonfire, Rebel Fund and SBXI, is in talks with unnamed mental health organisations to make Sonia available as a resource through its online portal. Reviews for Sonia on the App Store are overwhelmingly positive so far, with many users saying they find it easier to talk to a chatbot than a human therapist about their issues.
But is this a good thing?
Today’s chatbot technology is limited in the quality of advice it can provide — and it may not recognize subtle signs of a problem, such as an anorexic person asking how to lose weight. (Sonia may not even know the person’s weight.)
Chatbots’ responses are also coloured by biases – often Western biases reflected in their training data. As a result, they are more likely to overlook cultural and linguistic differences in the way mental illnesses are expressed, especially if English is the person’s second language. (Sonia only supports English.)
In the worst case scenario, chatbots go off the rails. Last yearThe National Eating Disorders Association was criticized for replacing humans with a chatbot, Tessa, to offer weight loss tips to people with eating disorders.
Klebe emphasized that SONIA is not trying to replace human doctors.
“We’re building a solution for the millions of people who are struggling with their mental health but can’t (or don’t want to) access a human therapist,” Klebe said. “Our goal is to fill the huge gap between demand and supply.”
There is certainly a gap – both in terms of the ratio of professionals to patients and the cost of treatment versus what most patients can afford. More than half of Americans do not have adequate geographic access to mental care, According A recent government report and a recent report survey found that 42% of American adults with a mental health problem were not able to receive care because they could not afford it.
An article in Scientific America describes the therapy app as being for “anxious healthy” people or people who can afford the therapy and app subscription, rather than isolated individuals who may be most at risk but don’t know how to ask for help. At $20 a month, Sonja isn’t exactly inexpensive — but Klebe argues that it’s cheaper than a typical therapy appointment.
“Using Sonia is much easier than seeing a human doctor, which involves finding a doctor, being on a four-month waiting list, going there at a scheduled time and paying $200,” he said. “Sonia has already seen more patients than a human doctor would see in their entire career.”
I only hope that Sonia’s founders remain transparent in creating this app about the issues it can and cannot address.
sonias-ai-chatbot-steps-in-for-therapists-techcrunch
