My essay will explore whether AI is a detriment to or is useful for mental health in children and adolescents. The essay will also focus on whether or not the positives of AI in each of these areas outweigh or counteract the negatives, as both sections have positives and negatives, to come to a conclusion. It will be divided in the following four sections:
Therapy/Counseling
AI, specificially ChatGPT and other LLMs, can serve more readily as therapists and counselors than *actual* certified therapists and counselors. Is that a problem?
Suicide
Due to dependency on AI, AI has caused adolescents in particular to end themselves (Sewell Setzer is the example I want to bring up), but there are also MANY ways that AI is being used to detect suicidal ideation and prevent suicidal attempts. Does that outweigh the fact that it can also cause suicide? Is Sewell’s case just a rare example?
Sexual Abuse
…This is the one I knew the least about prior to my research and am still learning about it’s connection to AI. But essentially, children go through SA and develop PTSD because of AI. But again, there are ways to prevent this. Does that fix the problem?
Self-Diagnosing
This has more to do with the field of mental health than mental health itself. Many children and adolescents are self-diagnosing themselves with mental illnesses like depression and neurodivergencies like ASD and ADHD through AI. Is that a problem?
Sources:
Background
My background sources will discuss the overall significance of artificial intelligence and mental health.
A key background source I have is “Artificial Intelligence for Mental Health and Mental Illnesses: an Overview” by Graham et al. The source provides context into how artificial intelligence has been used in AI, what AI mental health problems the literature has been discussing, and what machine models are used (and which are the most common). It’s a great overview to introduce the topic, both to myself and to my readers.
Theory/Tool
I’m not entirely sure what theory this essay fits into – this is the one I’m struggling with.
Exhibit
There’s at least one example that I have found in my sources for each section I’ve included, although the one that immediately comes to mind is the one I already knew about, Sewell.
A source for that can serve as an exhibit is “Critical review of self-diagnosis of mental health conditions using artficial intelligence” by Wimbarti et al. The very exsistence of the source serves to elucidate the problem. The source can also serve as an Argument source below as it questions the validity of AI diagnoses, which will be useful evidence to validate my conclusions of if self-diagnosis is a problem.
Argument
I will be “arguing” with all of the proposed solutions to these problems and verifying if they are “enough” to solve the issue.
Motive
Well, _ again. Mental health has also been decreasing at an alarming rate for my generation and the generations below me (hence the age range of children and adolescents). With this and artificial intelligence both being relatively new, my paper will serve the dual purpose of exploring if AI is the cause. (That won’t be the main focus, but the paper will explore that via it’s purpose.) Most of my exhibit sources will play the dual role of providing the paper motive as they will showcase examples of terrible mental health problems as a result of AI.
1 Comment
I like the structure and sections that you plan to incorporate in your essay. My one question is, “Is meeting with and Artificial Counselor as effective as normal counseling, or is the human to human interaction vital for counseling?”
1 Comment
I like the structure and sections that you plan to incorporate in your essay. My one question is, “Is meeting with and Artificial Counselor as effective as normal counseling, or is the human to human interaction vital for counseling?”