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AI and Mental Health | Munk Debates

SEASON TWO - EPISODE #40

AI and Mental Health

Be it resolved, the future of mental health is big data.

Guests
Daniel Barron
Gerhard Gründer

About this episode

A Facebook algorithm that tracks posts for suicidal thoughts; an app that monitors the speed of keyboard strokes for signs of depression; a computer program that analyzes our facial expressions and tone of voice when we Facetime. These are a few of the thousands of algorithms tracking our mental health that some experts say could revolutionize how we diagnose and treat mental illness. They say that our 24/7 use of digital devices is generating a goldmine of information about our mental state that must be accessible to mental health practitioners if psychiatric medicine is to operate like a scientific discipline in the 21st century. Instagram posts, text logs, Google searches, and GPS data, and not psychiatrists’ observations and intuitions based on conversation, offer the detail and time stamped precision we need to generate tailored and effective treatments to the millions of individuals who desperately need help in the post pandemic world.

Critics say the problems with this big data approach go far beyond the obvious privacy issues that come with outsourcing mental health monitoring to digital monopolies like Google and Apple. The push for mental health algorithms reflects a reductive view of human emotions that undermines the strengths of the traditionally human centred field of psychiatric medicine. Diagnoses based on dialogue between two individuals and grounded in intuition and empathy will always be better than machine intelligence at drawing out the personal histories that explain trauma and generate helpful treatment. Engaging machines to address the mental health crisis is nothing but a quick fix solution that only helps the deeply under resourced health systems of our world today.

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Guests

Daniel Barron

Daniel Barron

Daniel Barron is the author of Reading Our Minds: The Rise of Big Data Psychiatry. He is Medical Director of the Interventional Pain Psychiatry Program at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, joining the faculty at Harvard Medical School. He completed medical school and residency at Yale University, holds a PhD in human brain imaging from the University of Texas, and is a fellow at the University of Washington. He is a regular contributor at Scientific American and hosts Science et al., a podcast produced by the Yale School of Medicine. 

Gerhard Gründer

Gerhard Gründer

Gerhard Gründer is a Professor of Psychiatry at the Medical Faculty Mannheim at Heidelberg University, Germany. He heads the Department for Molecular Neuroimaging at the Central Institute for Mental Health in Mannheim. His main research interests include the neurobiology of mental disorders as well as molecular and clinical psychopharmacology. He uses functional imaging methods, in particular positron emission tomography (PET). His most recent interest is the clinical evaluation of psychedelic drugs in severe mental disorders, and he leads the largest academic-initiated clinical trial with a psychedelic (in treatment-resistant depression) ever done. He recently discussed his thoughts on the ethics and philosophy of psychiatry and their contribution to the further development of society in a book (German: Wie wollen wir leben? Springer-Verlag 2020; the English translation: How Do We Want to Live? will be published later in 2021).

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