AI Therapists?

AI isn't ready to be your therapist, but it's a top reason people use it. Expert in brain health Dr. Patrick K. Porter joins us to discuss why you should not use artificial intelligence for therapy. 

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Well, one of the most common ways people use generative AI,
as it turns out, is for therapy, but be careful,
as experts say, the technology isn't ready yet. This is
West Michigan's Morning News, Steve Kelly and Brett Mekita, expert
in brain health, Doctor Patrick K. Porter back with us
this morning. Doctor, thanks for doing this today.

Speaker 2 (00:22):
Great to be here, Thanks for having me, and.

Speaker 1 (00:24):
We have talked about mental health and folks needing help
more than ever a lot in the last few years,
especially after COVID, when things seem to sort of blow
wide open. Though they are attempting to make this technology better.
Talk to us a little bit about what are people
reaching out for and what are they getting with AI.

Speaker 2 (00:46):
Well, I think they're reaching out for answers because we're
just understaffed with healthcare providers to help all these people
that are going through these crises of stress and mental
health disorders that we have out there today. So jet
GPT is really easy to do. It need these other
AIS and they give them an instant response. But the
caution is it's just like a Google search. Sometimes you

(01:08):
get good returns on those searches, sometimes you get bad returns.
You have to discern on is that good information for
you or not?

Speaker 3 (01:15):
And that's just it, doctor Porter, kind of what we
were talking about. It makes sense when you think about it.
AI is so new that or chat, GPT or whatever
the case might be, that there's not enough experience with
it or it hasn't experienced enough to answer all those
questions that are very difficult when it comes to mental health.

Speaker 2 (01:33):
Right, that's correct, and AI is not intelligent. It's actually
a database, a large, large learning model where they've taken
a lot of different information. I mean we're talking about
hundreds of millions of pieces of data and they've organized
it in a way that can be readily available to people.
But it doesn't mean that somebody's thinking with it. It's
just the machine doing it.

Speaker 1 (01:55):
You know, anybody can order something that will make your
hearing better that you see on TV, but an audiologist
hasn't given you a physical yet. I think a lot
of people will find I mean there's a lot of
services online to find a therapist, but finding a doctor
that is trained to do that sort of thing. At

(02:16):
least from my advice to people, and this is from
somebody that's been in therapy for like fifteen years seems
to be the best thing to.

Speaker 2 (02:23):
Do, right. Yeah, that's correct. And also you have to
remember what prompts are you giving that AI because those
return back those issues. So I would always recommend, I
would say, top healthcare providers, what would they respond to
because they've actually said it returns back sometimes people who
do harm to themselves, it approves the plan. That's pretty bizarre, ye,

(02:46):
you know, so you don't want your AI telling you
to go harm yourself.

Speaker 3 (02:52):
I think doctor Porter one of the things that's interesting too,
because we don't want to confuse this and I know
my wife's used it, and I'm sure there's other parents
out there, especially with and if you're going through that
first time, young parents that you know looking up symptoms
for instance, if your child has something and saying okay, yeah,
I mean I know that that's not a catch all
be all, but at least it's a start, like you said,
because you know, doctors and staffs are stretched to the

(03:15):
limit as far as the need compared to how many
there are.

Speaker 2 (03:18):
Right, that's right. And also you have to remember too
that it's it has a bias. You know, you'll you'll
find it, it'll feedback. Certain information is pretty bizarre, like we
do use it. I think it's a very valuable tool,
but you've got to remember that it's it's not flawless.
It's not like an omission god or something that's going
to answer answer your questions and give you all the

(03:41):
therapy help. It's going to give you suggestions and maybe
give you a plan, but you still have to use
discernment to see if that really works for you.

Speaker 1 (03:48):
That is Doctor Patrick K. Porter, expert in brain health.
Always great information.

Speaker 2 (03:53):
Thank you, Okay, thank you,