第2163b期:AI Chatbots to Help with Mental Health Struggles

Glenn Cohen of Harvard Law School said, “If you’re really worried about people using your app for mental health services, you want a disclaimer that’s more direct…” He suggested, “This is just for fun.”哈佛法学院的格伦·科恩说：“如果你真的担心人们使用你的应用程序提供心理健康服务，你需要一个更直接的免责声明……”他建议说，“这只是为了好玩。”Still, chatbots are already playing a role due to an ongoing shortage of mental health professionals.尽管如此，由于心理健康专业人员持续短缺，聊天机器人已经发挥了作用。Britain’s National Health Service has begun offering a chatbot called Wysa to help with stress, anxiety and depression among young people.英国国家医疗服务体系已开始提供名为 Wysa 的聊天机器人，以帮助年轻人缓解压力、焦虑和抑郁。This includes those people waiting to see a therapist. Some health insurers, universities, and hospitals in the United States are offering similar programs.这包括那些等待看治疗师的人。 美国的一些健康保险公司、大学和医院也提供类似的计划。Dr. Angela Skrzynski is a family doctor in the American state of New Jersey. When she tells her patients how long it will take to see a therapist, she says they are usually very open to trying a chatbot. Her employer, Virtua Health, offers Woebot to some adult patients.Angela Skrzynski 医生是美国新泽西州的一名家庭医生。 当她告诉患者需要多长时间才能见治疗师时，她说他们通常非常愿意尝试聊天机器人。 她的雇主 Virtua Health 向一些成年患者提供 Woebot。Founded in 2017 by a Stanford-trained psychologist, Woebot does not use AI programs. The chatbot uses thousands of structured language models written by its staff and researchers.Woebot 由一位斯坦福大学培训的心理学家于 2017 年创立，不使用人工智能程序。 该聊天机器人使用由其员工和研究人员编写的数千个结构化语言模型。Woebot founder Alison Darcy says this rules-based model is safer for health care use. The company is testing generative AI models, but Darcy says there have been problems with the technology.Woebot 创始人艾莉森·达西 (Alison Darcy) 表示，这种基于规则的模式对于医疗保健用途来说更安全。 该公司正在测试生成式人工智能模型，但达西表示该技术存在问题。She said, “We couldn’t stop the large language models from… telling someone how they should be thinking, instead of facilitating the person’s process.”她说：“我们无法阻止大型语言模型……告诉某人他们应该如何思考，而不是促进人们的过程。”Woebot’s finding was included in a research paper on AI chatbots published last year in Digital Medicine.Woebot 的发现被收录在去年《数字医学》杂志上发表的一篇关于人工智能聊天机器人的研究论文中。The writers concluded that chatbots could help with depression in a short time. But there was no way to study their long-term effect on mental health.作者得出的结论是，聊天机器人可以在短时间内帮助缓解抑郁症。 但没有办法研究它们对心理健康的长期影响。Ross Koppel of the University of Pennsylvania studies health information technology. He worries these chatbots could be used in place of treatment and medications. Koppel and others would like to see the FDA review and possibly regulate these chatbots.宾夕法尼亚大学的罗斯·科佩尔研究健康信息技术。 他担心这些聊天机器人可以用来代替治疗和药物。 科佩尔和其他人希望看到 FDA 审查并可能监管这些聊天机器人。Dr. Doug Opel works at Seattle Children’s Hospital. He said, “There’s a whole host of questions we need to understand about this technology so we can ultimately do what we’re all here to do: improve kids’ mental and physical health.”道格·欧佩尔医生在西雅图儿童医院工作。 他说：“我们需要了解有关这项技术的一大堆问题，这样我们才能最终完成我们所有人要做的事情：改善孩子的身心健康。”