Reflecting on whether psychology is problematizing AI, or if concerns are well-founded.
Psychology has long been focused on problems, though not always. Source: Unsplash/NASA Every few weeks, we are met with a new publication that warns against the effects of AI on psychological functioning, from “.
Around the same time I last published on AI here, I came across a beautiful intervention by AI, buried within an even more beautiful story aboutFor starters, it is worth considering the field itself and its origins. Psychology has long been wed to subfields such as “abnormal psychology” and psychopathology that focus on pathology and problems. In his book on the, George Makari notes that the field was initially developed through the study of animals, children, and psychopathology.
Granted, figures such as Wundt were less focused on this, and the work of William James was even more positively inclined – asking more how psychology could help humans flourish – the field of ‘positive psychology’ did not emerge until the 1990s. The very fact that a subfield explicitly focused on the “positive” is arguably telling.
: “There are many examples demonstrating that psychology in fact did not solve problems but produced problematizing in which neutral issues were turned into highly problematized objects. ” While Foucault was speaking to issues such as race rather than technology, the point is relevant. Psychologists can counter, saying their cautions about AI are rooted in evidence-based findings.has contributed several key ideas to psychology.
Among them is the finding that apparently small factors can influence at scale, whether it is which option is athat bigger changes, such as the mass rollout of the smartphone, can have a monumental impact. Haidt is one of the leading psychologists who is pushing for policy-driven restrictions on smartphone use. While the dynamics of smartphones andBehavioral economics has also deepened our knowledge of cognitive biases that may contribute to how the field approaches this topic .
Instinctively, a group of people who chose to pursue a field that focuses on human beings, and at the clinical end of the profession, on working collaboratively with other human beings to alleviate challenges and distress, are also likely to be distrustful of inanimate machines, especially when they feign animacy. LLMs are being touted as tools to promote psychological well-being, by way of serving as counsellors and caring “partners.
” While the extreme end of this “partnership” has seen phenomena such as “ and isolation . A control group that wrote in a journal and another experimental group that messaged a chatbot did not experience this benefit. Those who messaged another human also experienced significant benefits to their mood. An unsettling element lies in the propensity for options initially framed as a last resort to eventually becoming the default for purposes of cost and convenience.
In hismentions that they were initially seen as last ports of call, but quickly became the go-to option. In our own lifetimes, we see psychoactiveas psychological treatment” becomes an option, it could disincentivize states and policymakers to find more robust solutions. That LLMs have been made available en masse without a full account of their psychological impact, let alone robust longitudinal evidence, is relevant.perhaps this is where AI can make a hugely positive impact.
AI trawled through masses of data to identify patterns that would have been difficult for a team of humans to find independently. It shines when processing inanimate, vast data. Discoveringcan be genuinely enriching for humans and can catalyze nurturing environmental attitudes. As for therapy and human-to-human collaborations, AI could play a supporting role on several levels, but centering it as the heart of the solution seems misguided.
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