To think chat GPT is better than some 'real' therapists?

Re the environment….

I don’t think people realise AI is already inserted in anything and everything. People use it at work. It’s not call ChatGPT or Grok etc… Researchers used it all day long.
Its going to be used more and more fir anything and everything. Our individual use is a drop in the ocean

How is it tiresome? It’s a huge and real threat. Do you not want the future generations to be able to drink and wash in water? There are people out there who are already suffering the effects of this, do they not matter? Or is it just because it isn’t happening to you? What about when you can’t access fresh water? Or when your water rates go up? Will you care then? Or is it okay for others to suffer so you can ask AI to make you stupid pictures?

It’s not tiresome that people don’t have access to water. It’s life and death to those people.

On a website where people are berated for the environmental impact of having children, it’s fair to note the significant impact of AI on water consumption.

Well I don’t know if it’s ’just regurgitating text book answers’ but I’ve had a conversation where it went into liminal spaces and how what I was feeling was reflecting that.
Ive never had ANY counsellors/therapist mentioning that to me before.
And my own therapist didn’t know what it was either but was really keen on my explanation and what it meant 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️

Just curiosity, but have you used it yourself? As in really giving it a go.

The environmental argument is so tiresome. Do you bleat on at people driving cars too?

Then you will be missing out on all those who won’t go and seek help, who doesn’t want to sit in front of a real person. The one I met (through work) was awful, never again. Not everyone are you.

I won’t be, because by very definition they won’t be seeking therapy. Yes, some aren’t great - that’s the case for all human professions, and it can take time to find the right person. There’s some therapeutic benefit to AI, as there is with all help seeking - books, podcasts etc. The danger with AI is that people potentially use it as a replacement for human relationships or think they’re in a relationship with ChatGPT (offering empathy and sympathy?), rather than recognising they’re using an advanced search engine that draws from stuff other people have told it.

Just so people are aware, Chat GPT is so destructive to the environment, please look into the amount of water it is wasting and how it is already affecting communities in terrible ways.

Please don’t spend hours asking it frivolous things. I don’t mean that using it for therapy is frivolous, but people are on there making stupid pictures and asking it stupid questions and the damage it’s causing is massive. It has the potential to seriously affect us, please use it responsibly.

To visualise - one bottle of water per 100 words. So making it write stupid poems for your cat is so utterly wasteful it’s insane.

Then you will be missing out on all those who won’t go and seek help, who doesn’t want to sit in front of a real person. The one I met (through work) was awful, never again. Not everyone are you.

I tried it by asking it to write a birthday poem for my 17-old cat. Told which snacks she likes, her name, loves the sun etc. It was absolutely brilliant it nearly brought a tear to my eye. And so, so unnecessary.

It isn’t an equal sort of relationship between friends though, it is a transactional one which is based around only accessing this relationship at particular times of the week between particular hours.

Those boundaries are important though. The therapeutic frame is there to support containment and give space to process what’s come up during that session. The benefit or work in therapy happens in between sessions as you reflect on the session, have space to think through the issues you’ve spoken about and to learn distress tolerance. It’s not a slot machine.

There’s something deeply healing about being vulnerable in the presence of another person who sees you and accepts you for who you are. Yes it’s hard, and embarrassing at times and uncomfortable but it also creates an environment for significant personality growth.

I wouldn’t work with someone who was already seeing a therapist, because there’s so much potential for harm. Similarly I’d need to really think about someone using AI for “therapy” between sessions.

Isn’t this what many therapists do though.

I don’t think therapists should be replaced but AI uses all of the same tools as therapists use.

Its not perfect and makes mistakes but so would a human individual.

Getting lots of information/use tools from lots of different professionals is going to give you a much more accurate answer than 1 individual, who only has their own training and experience to go on.

There are lots of telephone helplines or online chats for people struggling.

I think if people find in person human therapy better, then great.
But if people find online/telephone/AI chats better, then that’s great too.

Whatever works and whatever you have access to is a good thing.

I can imagine AI saving many lives and lifting some burden off the NHS.
I don’t think it should replace humans but I definitely think it can be used as a tool by us.

That sounds lovely. Will the hoovering of said brain hurt?

Sorry, I had to laugh a little at your comment. It's something my Nana would have said to the thought of anything remotely AI - like.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/may/30/ugly-truth-ai-chatgpt-guzzling-resources-environment

No, that's not how it works

A chat with chat gpt might use a few litres of water that gets recycled around the system.

Making ONE pair of jeans uses 10,000 litres of water. I've bought maybe 3 pairs of jeans in the last 10 years so I'll use my jeans water budget to support my mental health.

A bit childish perhaps, but anyone else get Ginny Weasley vibes from AI and people who make it their best friend?
‘Never trust anything that can think for itself if you can't see where it keeps its brain…’

The mental health trust I work for is now using AI to help reduce the pressure on Drs by assisting with writing clinical notes. It’s not new or alien. It’s a technology that’s here, we might as well see how it can be used in helpful ways rather than wasting it on silly pictures.

I don’t pay for Gemini (though there is a paid version).

A colleague at work pays for premium ChatGPT but that’s because she does a lot of research in her job and academics. She says normal ChatGPT is amazing enough but premium is mind blowing

Makes me so uncomfortable to think how people are pouring their innermost thoughts fears and vulnerabilities into a screen to be harvested as data.

If it stops people committing suicide or committing terrible crimes, I'm all for it.

Then again what happens if someone asks it how to commit a terrible crime, then we have problems, and the Terminator is born.

I don’t pay for it, I don’t know what you get extra for paying but the free service is fine for me.

Anyone concerned about privacy should use Venice AI, same formula but is private (I use it).

I had no idea what to do or expect so I started off by just saying ‘hi’, it said hi back and asked how I was doing today/what I’d like to talk about, if I wanted information about how it works. I just took it from there

@ChocolateGanachejust … ask! You can ramble or you can be direct or you can just pour out stuff in a jumble. And it’ll do the rest

you can even say ‘this may not be very clear but …’ and just spit it out. It’ll then dig deeper into what you’re asking or wanting

Will someone ask Chat GPT how to pay my Thames Water bill?

Great if you have a therapist on speed dial who will listen to you any day any time.