With depression and anxiety on the rise throughout the pandemic, coinciding with a national shortage of mental health professionals, AI-powered tools present an enticing alternative as an entry point for care. But a future with AI as a mental-health mediator is still a ways off, and, until then, it is wise to proceed with caution, notes Dan Adler, a doctoral student in the field of information science, in an editorial published at Fast Company.
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“As an overall mindset, technologists should not assume that AI tools will perform well when deployed, but instead continuously work with stakeholders to reevaluate solutions as they underperform or are misaligned with stakeholders’ needs,” Adler writes.
A member of the People-Aware Computing Lab, Adler specializes in the design and implementation of the machine-learning algorithms that monitor behavioral health data.