alt Hacker NewsThe bad cases make headlines. But I think it's quite possible that AI is helping a lot of people in distress. Many people are uncomfortable opening up to humans, or have no one to talk to, or can't afford to fork over whatever-hourly-rate a therapist takes.
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Open ai and similar companies could open the doors to academic researchers to figure out the stats of help vs harm. It is not going to be a short term and perhaps not long term profit center though.
Therapy is cheap (as in like $10)/free with insurance. However there are still 10 states that have not expanded medicaid after the ACA, mostly in the south.
But also, to suggest these people are not receiving therapy is not always the case. Talk therapy is just that, talking to someone on ones problems to learn about them, their triggers, determining coping mechanisms to move forward with one's life. People might instead be getting all that from their barber, drinking buddy, or their priest, rather than in a 1 hour appointment with a therapist.
So how many bad cases are ok? Isn't this the same problem with social media: the commercial enterprises dont want any responsibility for their dark pattern and design choices which actively harm their users.
I get that all kinds of media can cause issues, but not all kinds of media are actively curated to be addictive.
Pure speculation.
It's impossible to gather data that states the opposite. A chat that won't end up in self harm thoughts is just another chat.