All right, y'all. Today we're going to

talk about whether you should use AI for

your mental health. So, AI has swept

into every corner of our society and a

lot of people are struggling to find

good mental health resources, find

appropriate support. So, they're doing

something really natural, which is turn

to AI. The question is, does it actually

help? Because a lot of people feel like

it helps. There there are many people

who say AI is amazing is really I've had

clients who will work with like AI like

claude and they'll say it's given me a

ton of like mental insight as more

people are using it. We're finally

starting to study it and I found one

study that is actually like kind of

scary and once again this is not like me

trying to be alarmist. This is like

there's actually research about this

stuff coming out and the research is

genuinely alarming. So let me show you.

So this is a study where people put

together three clinical scenarios and

they basically gave them the stat GPT

and the three clinical scenarios are

people saying hey I have difficulty

sleeping. So there are a couple of

things that they noticed when they gave

these three scenarios. So scenario one

is like someone who's a little bit

stressed. Scenario two is someone who

has clinical depression and has work

stress. Scenario three is someone who

has postpartum depression which is

actually a really scary diagnosis. So we

got to talk about this for a second.

Okay. For many people, they are

diagnosed with bipolar disorder after

they deliver birth. This is the first

evidence or episode of mania or

depression that they get. And the reason

why postpartum depression is so scary or

postpartum bipolar, first manic episode

is so scary is because these are the

horror stories that you hear about.

Postpartum depression and postpartum

mania have been correlated with things

like infanticide, suicide. So, this is

like one of the bad illnesses in

psychiatry. This is one of like the, you

know, ring the alarm illnesses because

bad stuff happens. So when these three

scenarios were fed into chat GPT, this

is a study about chat GPT, okay? But I'm

not like anti-Chat GPT over other AIs.

What they basically found was kind of

disturbing. So the first is that the

advice that the AI gave was basically

the same in all three scenarios. Even

though one person is basically stressed,

second person has clinical depression,

third person has postpartum depression

with a risk of suicide infanticide.

Chachi PD was basically like here's what

you need to do. But there's a more

troubling problem. Not only did it miss

the diagnosis, we have to understand why

it missed the diagnosis. And once we

understand that, we will understand a

fundamental problem with using AI for

your mental health, which is that the AI

does not ask questions. So if you think

about I'm a medical doctor, I'm a

psychiatrist, right? So what is my job?

My job is to provide treatment

recommendations. Absolutely. But I would

say more than 50% of my job is to figure

out what is actually going on with my

patient. So, we ask a lot of questions.

In the case of scenario number three,

one of the things that we should

evaluate in a postpartum woman who's

having difficulty sleeping is their

thyroid because there's an autoimmune

thing that can happen after you deliver

a baby where you can attack your your

immune system can attack your thyroid

gland is your thyroid level drops. You

can start to feel really depressed. You

can also get hypothyroidism. It gets a

bit complicated, but this is something

that we're taught in medical school,

right? So when postpartum women come in,

make sure you check these things because

this is stuff that you don't want to

miss. So let's understand why they don't

know how to answer questions. And that's

because an AI doesn't actually know

anything. It has no intelligence. This

is what's really scary about it. So let

me let me explain a little bit. Okay. So

as a mental health professional, why do

I ask questions? What is the purpose of

questions? It's because when you come in

with a complaint, let's say you have

difficulty sleeping, there is something

called a differential diagnosis. So, do

you have difficulty sleeping because

you're stressed? Do you have difficulty

sleeping because you're in your first

episode mania postpartum? Do you have

difficulty sleeping because you are

addicted to substances? Do you have

difficulty sleeping because you have

thyroid problems? Do you have difficulty

sleeping because you have a lifelong

history of insomnia that is genetic? Do

you have difficulty sleeping because you

have a rare pron condition called

familial fatal insomnia, which is

exactly what it sounds like. It's an

inherited condition which you lose the

ability to sleep and is eventually

fatal. Right? As a doctor, I have to

think about all of these possibilities

and then I have to ask you questions to

figure out which of these is correct.

This is why as a physician, it I book

about 2 hours for an initial patient

intake because I have to be thorough and

make sure I don't miss something. Now,

an AI cannot do that. And the question

is why? Because asking a question

requires a hypothesis, requires

information in here that I'm trying to

evaluate. But the AI has no information

in here. The AI knows nothing. And this

is what something we really need to

understand. So these AIs are large

language learning models. So literally

what they do, they don't have

information. They make predictions about

how people speak. So I think about AIs

now as the most sophisticated parrots on

the planet. Okay? So a parrot can say

all kinds of words. It actually has no

idea what they mean. And the AI is

actually the same. And if you guys are

AI engineers and I'm wrong about this,

please post a comment. But this is my

basic understanding. What they do is

they study lots of human language and

then they figure out which human

language sounds good. So they're

basically just repeating. They're doing

speech mimicry. They're not actually

doing analysis. Then what happens is the

AI learns over time, okay? Like which

mimicry, like which words do human

beings like, which is why they become so

sickantic, which is why they may lead to

things like psychosis and stuff like

that, right? So I made a whole video

about that, but this is basically how

AIS work. They don't actually know

anything. They are algorithms or

intelligences that know how to produce

words that you will be happy with.

That's what they know how to do. That's

what they're designed for. I keep seeing

comments, Dr. Okay, how do I apply this

to a situation in my life? That's

literally why we created a coaching

program. Our coaches are certified on an

evidence-based curriculum designed to

help you get unstuck. This involves

analyzing your patterns, increasing your

understanding, and working with you week

to week to help you develop a plan to

create lasting change. So, if y'all are

interested, check out the link in the

description below. And so then that begs

the question, if they're just producing

things that you will be happy with, are

they actually helpful or not? Because a

lot of people will say that they're

helpful, right? We feel like it's

helpful. So here's a study from 2019.

This is before this like most recent

wave of generative AIs showed up that

are way more powerful, right? So we got

to be a bit careful about this study.

It's like way too dated. But this study

found that there were five controlled

trials that basically found that an AI

does actually improve things. It

improves people's psychological

functioning, but only when compared with

an inactive control. So basically, if

it's AI versus nothing, it seems to

improve things. But the moment that you

add something called an active control,

which is something that people are doing

but has no impact on their mental

health, that effect disappears. We don't

have really any good evidence that AI

usage improves mental health outcomes.

We also have some evidence. So if you

look at things like AI friendships, AIS

and social isolation, social

communication, you find a disturbing

result, which is that AI do what they're

supposed to do, at least in terms of

friendship. So they provide a sense of

companionship. They help people feel

less lonely sort of temporarily, but

they actually worsen social isolation

over time, which is a huge trend that

we're seeing, which is that AIS will do

the job, but they will like make you

incompetent in the process. So studies

on students and academic performance

find that AI usage actually improves

academic performance. So if I like have

to write a paper and I use an AI to help

me write a paper, the paper's grade is

better. But what it finds is that my

ability to write papers goes down over

time. And so then the question is okay

if like if there is not really any clear

evidence that AIs are very helpful for

mental health, why do so many people

swear by the benefits of AI for mental

health? And this is where we're going to

talk about something kind of scary,

which is the death of Michael Jackson.

So Michael Jackson passed away in I

think 2011. And basically he was on all

kinds of drugs. So he was on several

benzoazipines. So these are uh

benzoizipines are addictive. They're

sedating. They can be lethal in

overdose. But the most insane thing is

that his personal physician had him on

propall. Okay. Propal is an anesthesia

medicine. All right. So to treat Michael

Jackson's presumably insomnia, he had

him on a propall. And propall is a drip

by the way. Like I as far as I know, you

can't like take it in pill form. The

whole point of propal is that has a low

halfife so you can titrate it in

anesthesia. So his doctor is hooking him

up to anesthesia in order to go to

sleep. Right? So this is the the

medication that we use. Also had

mazzylam which is versed which is also

used in anesthesia. This guy has Michael

Jackson on anesthesia which is used for

things like cardiac bypass surgery.

Okay? Like when we're like cutting

things out of you or transplanting

organs in your body. This is the stuff

that we give you to knock you out. So

his doctor was eventually convicted for

manslaughter, right? So like this is not

the good practice of medicine. But

here's the question. Here's a scary

question I have for y'all. If you ask

Michael Jackson a month before his

doctor manages his eventual death, is

your doctor helping you? What do you

think Michael Jackson's answer would be?

And this is the big problem. Things that

are addictive and make us feel good are

things that we believe will help us. So

when I have patients who are using

marijuana for like falling asleep or

managing their anxiety, they're

convinced despite the fact that a recent

meta analysis found that marijuana is

not helpful for anxiety. And something

that clinicians have known for a long

time, right? So patients will swear by

it. And the reason patients swear by it,

and this is what's so hard to

understand, is that things that feel

good are things that you will think are

helpful. But just because it feels good

doesn't actually mean it's helpful.

Right? And if we ask Michael Jackson, is

your doctor helpful? He would actually

probably I don't know he may say based

on my patient experience, right? Not

only is he helpful, he's the only one

that's helpful. He's the only guy that

understands my insomnia well enough to

hook me up to general anesthesia. All

these other dumbass physicians are

giving me like sleep aids. I don't need

sleep aids. I need the stuff that we use

when we transplant when we do organ

transplants. Like that's the that I

need. This is the guy that takes me

seriously. And so then what's really

scary is researchers have recently

developed an AI addiction scale because

there's actually a decent amount of

evidence that this stuff is addictive,

right? That we become dependent on it.

We start to utilize it more. It makes us

sort of feel better, but it's not clear

that it's actually helping. So should

you use AI for your mental health? My

answer at this point is with extreme

caution. And the last reason for that is

that once again AI is really good at

improving performance but decaying

skill. And so the real question you need

to be asking yourself if you are using

an AI for mental health is is my mental

health something that I want to be good

at managing. Do I want the skill of

regulating my emotions? Do I want the

skill of self-reflection and

introspection? And if the answer is yes,

you should not be using an AI. A lot of

people are turning to AI for their

mental health because there aren't

enough trained mental health

professionals. That's why we created the

Healthy Gamer Institute. This is an

educational body that does continuing

medical education for psychiatrists and

psychologists, but our primary focus

right now is actually in certifying

coaches. There's a huge demand for

mental health support and there isn't

enough supply. And we also see a lot of

people come to coaching for professional

development. They want to do coaching

within their organization or they want

to learn evidence-based communication

skills to help them advance in their

careers and personal life. So check out

the Healthy Gamer Institute to learn

more about coaching. We actually have a

cohort that's launching in May that

y'all can still sign up