There can be significant barriers to seeing a therapist: high costs, long waitlists and difficulty finding a therapist who is the right fit. Tiktok users had one idea that churned up nearly 17 million posts in March alone: What about using ChatGPT as a therapist? 

Qian Yang, assistant professor of information science in the Cornell Ann S. Bowers College of Computing and Information Science, sees this convergence of mental health and consumer-facing artificial intelligence into a moment of TikTok virality as a sign that a broader shift is underway. 

“The line between consumer AI systems, like ChatGPT and Apple Watch, that can support well-being and clinical AI built for mental health care is increasingly blurred,” Yang said at the opening of the Cornell Thought Summit, “Everyday AI & Mental Health: Navigating a Tipping Point,” which took place June 16-20 in Gates Hall. “The potential for this integration between everyday AI that people use and the clinical AI that doctors use allows for step-by-step interventions that are more responsive to people’s everyday condition. That vision is very enticing.”

In an ideal world, consumer-facing AI, such as wearables and therapy bots that monitor a person’s health, would integrate seamlessly with a clinician’s AI-powered tools and safely transfer useful, actionable patient health data. Such integration would improve patient health and efficiency and make doctors' jobs a little easier. But we aren’t there yet, Yang said. 

“It is quite complicated to build AI systems and mine insights from these mixed data sources,” she said. That, and healthcare – together with the legal, technological, and economic factors that govern it – are so complex as it is, she said. 

Read the full story on the Cornell Bowers website.