alt Hacker NewsIn the United States at least there’s a huge lack of mental health professionals, they’re expensive, insurance goes out of their way to make it inaccessible, and wait times for appointments can be months out. For psychiatrists in some regions there are zero that accept insurance and there can be a six or longer month wait. Many regions have no inpatient beds or any sort.
My parents are clinical psychologists with 40 years experience, and they both agree LLMs could be a great boon to many many unserved people if made well. They think this is a wonderful avenue of research. But agree in the moment it’s not ready. I think the ethics of allowing people to suffer due to economics while ignoring a technology that can help them is worse, no? Telling them to seek a health professional when none are available is worse ?
> I think the ethics of allowing people to suffer due to economics while ignoring a technology that can help them is worse, no? Telling them to seek a health professional when none are available is worse ?
Not necessarily. Half-measures—especially those that try to offer technological solutions to social problems—allow the actual root problems to remain unaddressed, fester, and grow. The ACA was a hack for a failing system, and then when that quit working, more hacks were added on top, and on and on. LLMs are just another hack that let the can get kicked down the road once more.
If and until actual meaningful health care system reforms happen, the rich will continue getting their $63,000 14-day concierge service from Mass General Brigham whenever they feel blue, and the rest of us will end up getting Doctor Amazon telling us to practice deep breathing and buy some supplements.