Utah’s teens are facing a big problem when it comes to their mental health, as there are too few counselors to meet the demand.
If she was feeling down and there weren’t any counselors to speak to, she’d feel comfortable opening up to an AI chatbot.Her mother, Alexia, said if there aren’t any available counselors, an AI chatbot is better than nothing.One such service is ElizaCHAT. Company CEO David Barney said that’s why the chatbot was created, because there aren’t enough counselors to meet the needs of Utah’s students.
“I would say it this way. I would say the advice is not coming from AI. We have training models built by our clinical advisory board of licensed and trained psychologists and therapists. They’re building the model. We’re using the best practices of the industry,” Barney said. “When we work with our clinical advisory board, we tell them, ‘We’re trying to map your brain into Eliza’s brain.'”
However, he said there are a lot of things that can’t be picked up if someone is just typing their problems into a chat screen. For example, a child who angrily screams, “I don’t have any friends!” could be going through a very different problem than a kid who sadly cries, “I don’t have any friends.”