Fifth of hikikomori cases among working-age people attributed to pressures unleashed by pandemic
Justin McCurry in TokyoMon 3 Apr 2023 08.25 BSTLast modified on Tue 4 Apr 2023 04.18 BST
Almost 1.5 million people of working age in Japan are living as social recluses, according to a government survey, with about a fifth of cases attributed to the pressures unleashed by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Large numbers of hikikomori said they had begun retreating from mainstream society due to relationship issues and after losing or leaving their jobs, the cabinet office said. A significant proportion – 20.6% – said their predicament had been triggered by changes in lifestyle imposed during the pandemic.
Hikikomori – classed as people who withdraw from society, spending all or almost all of their time isolated at home – account for 2% of people aged 15-62, the survey found.
The cabinet office surveyed 30,000 people between the ages of 10 and 69 across Japan last November. The poll found that just over a fifth of respondents aged 15-39 had been socially isolated from six months to less than a year. More than 20% said they had experienced problems with interpersonal relationships, while just over 18% cited the pandemic.
Among people in the 40-64 age range, 44.5% said their behaviour had been triggered by leaving their jobs, followed by 20.6% who cited the pandemic.
Japan did not enforce UK-style lockdowns to help contain the spread of the virus, but people were asked to avoid unnecessary outings for long periods, and some employers and universities encouraged teleworking and remote learning.
On streets that would normally have been teeming with people there was a dramatic drop in footfall after restaurants, bars and other sectors of the nighttime economy were asked to stop serving alcohol and close early, or face fines.
The rise in the number of people living as recluses has prompted some local authorities to take action. Edogawa, a ward in Tokyo, will hold metaverse socialising events from June to give hikikomori the opportunity to meet people via their avatars.
The ward is home to more than 9,000 people, including students who have stopped attending classes, who describe themselves as hikikomori, according to a 2021 survey.skip past newsletter promotion
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“We don’t think everything will be solved just because we offer a metaverse. It’ll probably be helpful for some people,” the ward’s mayor, Takeshi Saito, told the Mainichi Shimbun. “We are targeting those who can’t leave their rooms and haven’t been interacting with other people. We want to help them take a step forward.”
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Feb 27, 2022 #SocialMedia#Haidt On Thursday, February 17, Jonathan Haidt and Robby Soave had an Oxford-style debate on the role of government regarding social media before a capacity crowd at the Sheen Center in downtown Manhattan. It was hosted by the Soho Forum, a monthly debate series sponsored by Reason. Soho Forum Director Gene Epstein served as moderator. Haidt, professor of ethical leadership at New York University and co-founder of Heterodox Academy, defended the debate resolution, “The federal government should increase its efforts to reduce the harms caused by social media.”
Haidt, author of a recent article in The Atlantic on social media’s harm to mental health, pointed out that while the platforms were not initially designed for people under 18, those individuals have arguably been its victims. Haidt likened the platforms to sugar—best taken in moderation.
The adoption of electronic health records (EHRs) was supposed to expedite these administrative tasks. In reality, it’s just created more roadblocks.
[Photo: Nikada/Getty Images]
BY CHRIS RIOPELLE
3 MINUTE READ
The feasibility of AI and machine learning (ML) tools in healthcare settings is up for debate. ChatGPT made headlines after a recent experiment proved it could pass all three parts of the United States Medical Licensing Exam (USMLE). At the same time, experts continue to raise concerns about the tool’s limitations in real-life healthcare situations, as well as its proclivity for inaccuracies and bias.
While clinicians and other medical experts continue to debate ML’s effectiveness for treating patients, they’re neglecting a much more dependable and equally impactful use case: administrative work. ML has tremendous potential to streamline tedious administrative tasks and free up valuable time for clinicians, which ultimately leads to better patient outcomes. However, the effectiveness of AI in reducing administrative workloads hinges on providers’ ability to properly incorporate these tools into their work routines.
ADMINISTRATIVE BURDENS COST THE U.S. HEALTH SYSTEM $1 TRILLION A YEAR
The U.S. spends nearly $4 trillion on healthcare annually, and administrative costs account for a quarter of this figure. For those not in the medical field, it can be difficult to grasp how much time clinicians spend each day on administrative work. Patient record-keeping, insurance billing, prescription management, and countless other tasks pile up, reducing the amount of time providers can dedicate to their patients.
The adoption of electronic health records (EHRs) was supposed to expedite these administrative tasks. In reality, it’s just created more roadblocks. Fifty-seven percent of providers say that excessive EHR documentation is contributing to burnout. And while a majority of providers say exchanging data within their EHR network is easy, far fewer (24%) say the same for out-of-network EHRs.
Administrative restraints also affect patients. Think back to your most recent doctor’s visit. How much of the visit was spent filling out paperwork or waiting patiently while a physician or nurse practitioner typed away at their computer? This time would be better spent having a more substantive discussion about new health issues and treatment options. These administrative burdens don’t just come at the expense of providers and staff—they take time away from the quality of care patients receive.
MACHINE LEARNING CAN REDUCE ADMINISTRATIVE ROADBLOCKS
ML has significant potential for helping providers streamline their administrative responsibilities and, as a result, foster better and more fulfilling patient experiences.
One potential use case involves AI-powered scribing solutions, which a number of startups are beginning to roll out. These solutions take detailed notes of a patient and provider’s conversation, which helps streamline and better capture the visit, allowing for a more productive appointment.
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Another trending use case is prior authorizations, or PAs. PAs occur when a healthcare payor requires a provider to secure approval to carry out a specific procedure or prescribe a medication. Physicians and their staff spend almost two full business days each week on PAs, and they can be a major source of contention between payors and providers. ML can quickly compile relevant patient information from EHRs and provide data-backed recommendations about the benefits of various treatment options. While providers still review the information and make the final call, ML can help reduce the time it takes to complete each PA.
In this example, ML acts as a supplemental tool for providers rather than the primary source of truth. This distinction is crucial. When using ML tools, providers will still have to use their best judgment for decision-making. But a reduced focus on administrative work coupled with a more comprehensive picture of a patient’s health history will make these judgments easier.
ADMINISTRATION PRESENTS AN OPPORTUNITY FOR EXPERIMENTATION
Concerns about bias and the feasibility of using ML and AI solutions are not without merit. Obviously, tools like ChatGPT have limitations, and it’s important to fully consider all the factors that could impact patient outcomes.
But using these tools for administrative purposes offers providers a much lower-stakes path to realize their benefits. Ultimately, by streamlining administrative tasks, providers become better equipped to offer their patients more comprehensive care.
Chris Riopelle is the CEO and cofounder of Strive Health.
IBM REPLACING 7,800 HUMAN JOBS WITH AI, INCLUDING HUMAN RESOURCES
by NOOR AL-SIBAI
YESTERDAY
GETTY / FUTURISM
“I COULD EASILY SEE 30 PERCENT OF THAT GETTING REPLACED BY AI AND AUTOMATION OVER A FIVE-YEAR PERIOD.”
Welp
It’s happening — companies are actually replacing human workers with artificial intelligence.
In an interview with Bloomberg, IBM CEO Arvind Krishna said that tech company is slowing or suspending hiring for any jobs that could possibly be done by AI — including, somehow, human resources and other non-customer-facing roles that amount to roughly 26,000 positions.
“I could easily see 30 percent of that getting replaced by AI and automation over a five-year period,” Krishna told the publication, which means that in total, AI could replace up to 7,800 jobs.
Part of this reduction, an IBM spokesperson told Bloomberg, may include not rehiring for any jobs that people vacate in the coming months.
The company currently employs about 260,000 people, and with 10 percent of those jobs being in non-customer service roles, it’s unclear what may be on the chopping block next.
Here We Go
News of this AI job replacement scheme comes after IBM announced earlier in 2023 that it would be laying off 3,900 people, though as Bloomberg notes, the company has added about 5,000 jobs in the first quarter of the year as well.
While fears of AI replacing human workers have sykrocketed since OpenAI released its game-changing ChatGPT software last year, this appears to be one of the first times a company has been this straightforward about its plans to do exactly that.
That doesn’t, however, mean that this is the first time it’s happened.
In April, BuzzFeed CEO Jonah Peretti announced that the company was kiboshing its entire news division — a move that came just a few months after it began publishing AI quizzes and content. While the decision to close the pioneering digital newsroom ostensibly was a financial one, it’s nearly impossible to see the move to AI and the closure of BuzzFeed News as unrelated.
As of now, it’s unclear how exactly IBM plans to go about replacing human labor with AI, but overall it doesn’t bode well.
For Walpurgis Night, the April 30 feast associated with witchcraft in German folklore, DW’s Karin Helmstaedt looked into the tragic story of her ancestor who was burned as a witch.
I remember the day I learned we had a witch in the family. I walked with my parents up a leafy hillside overlooking Winningen, a picturesque wine-making town on the banks of Germany’s Moselle River. It was a pilgrimage to the top of the “Hexenhügel,” or Witches’ Hill, where a sombre obelisk commemorates 21 people who died as a result of the Winningen Witch Trials.
For a Canadian kid just discovering Europe, it was quite a revelation. My mind was instantly filled with horrifying images. I ran my finger over the rough engraving of my 9th great-grandmother’s name: Margarethe Kröber. She had died over 300 years earlier, burned as a witch in November 1642.
Decades later, I was still haunted by her story and tried to find out more.
“Her case is particularly tragic,” historian Walter Rummel told me. The hands-down expert on the topic in Winningen says the area was unique for the fact that its extensive witch trial records — over 8,000 pages worth — were not only highly detailed but also extraordinarily well preserved. Cross-referenced with tax records, church and commercial registers, they offer a window into how the townspeople reacted to the threat of alleged witches in their midst — and how some knew to use the situation to their advantage.
A complex chapter
The European Witch Hunts represent a complicated chapter, and by its very nature misconceptions abound.
Add literature, radical feminist politics and the rise of neo-pagan religious movements like Wicca into the mix — and things get even murkier. From the Brothers Grimm to the Wizard of Oz, mythology surrounding the figure of the witch has been crystallized into our cultural subconscious.
In the Brothers Grimm fairytale, Hansel and Gretel are captured by a witch living in the forestImage: picture-alliance / akg-images
But beyond the imagery we often see as historical fact — for instance, that witches were burned at the stake in the Middle Ages, that midwives or red-haired women were most likely to be targeted, or that witch hunts were an instrument of the patriarchal Church to keep women down — things were far more complex. Early modern Europe saw a collusion of circumstances — social, political, religious and climactic — that set the stage for three centuries of witch hunts.
Wolfgang Behringer, an expert on early modern history, researched this tumultuous period and found that the major waves of witch hunts in Europe were linked with a noticeable climatic deterioration now referred to as the Little Ice Age (1306-1860), when a prevalence of epidemics and natural disasters meant European populations were massively stressed — and looking for explanations.
“If we assume that failed harvests played a big role in the desire for witch hunts, then we find that most of them are not initiated by the state or the Church, but rather by the populace,” said Behringer, who describes with hunts as a “form of protest” initiated by citizens.
Witch hunts had less to do with religion and more to do with forms of settlement, added Behringer: “There are practically no witch hunts in nomadic societies, or if a population is sparse. The village structure where people sit on top of each other, watch each other and get suspicious if any misfortune occurs, is (a more likely scenario for witch hunts) as so often witch trials are about subsistence.”
According to Rita Voltmer, historian and author of “Hexen” (2008), the figure of the witch was repeatedly instrumentalized — and romanticized — by early feminists like Matilda Joslyn Gage and even by Nazi propagandists to bolster the argument that the Catholic Church was the main driver of witch hunts.
“They were all part of this movement that took up the idea of the wise woman priestess — sometimes of Celtic origin, sometimes of Germanic origin — and that the blond and red-haired women, our forefathers and mothers, were deliberately persecuted by the Jewish-influenced Christian Church that was out to destroy the true Germanic race,” she said.
DW’s Karin Helstaedt returned to Winningen to find out more about her ancestor’s fateImage: Karin Helmstaedt/DW
A lethal mix in Germany
Currently, experts agree that some 50-60,000 people died between 1450 and 1789 in Europe as a result of witch hunts. And while there were “hot spots” in many countries, it’s a grim fact that roughly half — or 25,000 — were killed within the boundaries of present-day Germany.
Nearly 80% of the victims were women, but there were stark regional variations and in places like Iceland, Russia, or the province of Normandy, the vast majority of those accused of witchcraft or sorcery were men.
In Germany, then part of the Holy Roman Empire, the persecution of witches had a legal basis, thanks to the “Peinliche Gerichtsordnung” enacted by Emperor Charles V in 1532. This early penal code, also known as the “Carolina,” counted sorcery as a serious crime.
From then on witch trials across the Empire could supposedly be conducted in the name of law and order, but divided as it was into countless entities, and coupled with religious pressure and conflicts in the wake of the Reformation, Germany’s social fabric made for a particularly lethal mix.
Extract from the indictment of Margarethe Kröber, 1642Image: Karin Helmstaedt/DW
Anatomy of a witch trial
Which brings us back to Winningen. Of the 24 people accused there of witchcraft, 19 were executed, two died in prison, and the remaining three managed to fight their case and be acquitted.
My ancestor Margarethe came from a well-situated family. She married Zacharias Kröber, a judge, so together they belonged to the town’s social elite. Written records indicate that she had a rebellious nature. She had been married eight years and had two small boys when she was officially denounced for being a witch.
And it turns out she wasn’t the only one in the family to die on the Witches’ Hill. Margarethe’s own mother was in fact the first person in Winningen to be executed for witchcraft. Subsequently her aunt, her cousin and, as time went on, all her sisters and brother-in law met the same fate.
Winningen’s ‘Hexenstein’ commemorates the victims of Witch Trials in the 17th century, including Margarethe KröberImage: Karin Helmstaedt/DW
A clear case of the the upper crust being a target of witch hunts, which was typical for this area, but even Walter Rummel agrees the systematic destruction of an entire generation of Kröber spouses is exceptional. “Witchcraft was an accusation that couldn’t be topped,” he said, “and like a reactor, it irradiated everyone and everything around it.”
Through the witch trial protocols, all in ornate 17th-century script, I learned that she was accused of a long list of charges, including attending a Witches’ Sabbath, flying and poisoning people.
Margarethe had thumbed her nose at any rumors surrounding her for years, but was eventually arrested, strip searched, shaved and interrogated. She denied all the charges against her, and called on her husband to vouch for her innocence.
But in a heartbreaking turn of events — and ostensibly to protect his position in the town — Zacharias left her in the lurch, claiming that if she was a devout Christian, her body would withstand the torture, and that at any rate, she should simply confess “because you know you’re a witch.”
The cruelty of Europe’s witch trials
An estimated three million witch trials took place between 1450 to 1750. Around 60,000 people met gruesome deaths.
Image: Imago Images/United Archives International
Thousands of deaths at the stake
A leaflet in 1555 reports “a shocking scene” and shows the burning of alleged witches in Derenburg. It occurred during the peak of Europe’s witch-hunting madness, which took place from 1450 to 1750. Interestingly, it was not way back in the Middle Ages, but rather in modern times that witch hunting reached its peak. In Germany, tens of thousands of “witches” were burned alive.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
Archaic trial methods: the ‘swimming test’
Witch trials were seen as formal “legal” processes. One of the cruelest tests to determine whether or not one was a witch was the so-called “swimming test.” The accused were tied up and thrown into the water. Those who sank and drowned were deemed innocent, while those who managed to break free and swim to the top were proven to be witches who had been helped by the devil.
Image: picture-alliance/akg-images
The ’embarrassing interrogation’
As far back as the early modern times, every conviction required a confession, and this also applied to witch trials. So-called “embarrassing questioning” referred to no less than interrogation under torture. The various methods used are hinted at in the 16th-century woodcut pictured here.
Image: picture-alliance/akg-images
The bible of witch hunters
In 1486 the Dominican monk Heinrich Kramer published the book “Malleus maleficarum,” — the “Hammer of Witches.” In it, he not only provided what he considered to be the theoretical legitimation of witch hunting, but also an instruction manual for carrying out interrogations using torture. The “Hammer of Witches” remained in circulation until the 17th century and was popular with inquisitors.
Image: DW
A supposed annual gathering
In 1668, the writer Johannes Praetorius published a book in which he detailed the legend that the Brocken mountain in the Harz Mountain range in Germany was the scene of annual witches’ dances. In it, the author writes that “fiends from all over Germany” end up on the mountain peak each year on April 30, the night of St. Walpurgis.
Image: picture-alliance/akg-images
The case of Agnes Bernauer
It was one of the most famous criminal cases in early modern history and links the act of fornication to witchcraft, a common connection in many witch hunts. Agnes Bernauer, a peasant, was the lover of the heir to the throne of Albrecht III of Bavaria. Most likely at the behest of his father, she was condemned as a witch and drowned in the Danube in 1435.
Image: picture-alliance/akg-images
The case of Katharina Henot
Katharina Henot (pictured here, a statue of her at Cologne’s City Hall) came from a family of politicians in Cologne and would be considered a successful business woman today. Accused of witchcraft, she maintained her innocence even while she was tortured multiple times. Sentenced to death in 1627, she was granted a “privilege”: the executioner strangled her before burning her body.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
Death at the stake in Guernsey
Around 1550, several witch trials took place on this island in the English Channel amidst a conflict between Protestants and Catholics. In 1556, three Protestant women were burned alive on Guernsey. According to legend, one of them gave birth to a child in the fire, which was first rescued but then thrown back into the fire. The women were later venerated as the “Guernsey Martyrs.”
Image: picture-alliance / akg
New England witch hunt
In 1692, witch hunts made their way to the New World. It all began in Salem in what is now the US state of Massachusetts. The puritanical colonialists who came from England rigorously cracked down on suspected witchcraft in their attempt to establish a theocracy in New England. Fourteen women and five men were executed and dozens were tortured.
Image: picture-alliance/akg-images
9 images
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To extract her “confession,” the Witch Commission then resorted to torture, using crushing devices such as the so-called “boot,” and submitting her to “reverse hanging.”
At this point the trial records are excruciating to read. Her screams and suffering — “clamat et torturam” — were duly recorded. Tragically, her only way out of the torment was to lie — a mortal sin from a devout 17th-century perspective.
After two days of agony, she confessed to being a witch, effectively sealing her own death sentence. She was also forced to denounce another woman for witchcraft, ensuring the cycle of witch hunts could continue.
Two days later she was hauled up to the execution site and forced to beg forgiveness from the townspeople who had gathered to witness her execution. Thus exonerated, she was granted a “merciful” death by beheading before her body was burned.
The final anomaly came next in the form of a feeding frenzy: According to records, 250 liters of wine were carted up to the execution site — ensuring the whole town was complicit, while the caterers made a killing. Margarethe’s husband was handed the bill.
Karin Helmstaedt and historian Walter Rummel studying the witch trial records at the Koblenz state ArchivesImage: Manja Wolff
In short, power, money, envy and resentment were behind the witch trials which, in Winningen, were always directed at society’s upper echelons.
The last witch trial in Winningen in 1659 did not end in execution, as families mobilized resources to fight for their alleged witches’ cause. It was the beginning of the end — as people simply doubted so many could be guilty of witchcraft.
Witch hunting hysteria in Europe began to die down as key laws were changed. The age of Enlightenment meant science and reason took precedence over superstition. Food was more plentiful, and the advent of insurance meant people were less prone to disaster.
The last alleged witch in Europe was beheaded in Switzerland in 1782 — marking the end of a dark chapter in European history.
Taipei, Taiwan – Typing “I have anxiety” into ChatGPT, OpenAI’s ground-breaking artificial intelligence-powered chatbot gets to work almost immediately.
“I’m sorry to hear that you’re experiencing anxiety,” scrawls across the screen. “It can be a challenging experience, but there are strategies you can try to help manage your symptoms.”
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Then comes a numbered list of recommendations: working on relaxation, focusing on sleep, cutting caffeine and alcohol, challenging negative thoughts, and seeking the support of friends and family.
While not the most original advice, it resembles what might be heard in a therapist’s office or read online in a WebMD article about anxiety – not least because ChatGPT scrapes its answers from the wide expanse of the internet.
ChatGPT itself warns that it is not a replacement for a psychologist or counsellor. But that has not stopped some people from using the platform as their personal therapist. In posts on online forums such as Reddit, users have described their experiences asking ChatGPT for advice about personal problems and difficult life events like breakups.
Some have reported their experience with the chatbot being as good or better than traditional therapy.
The striking ability of ChatGPT to mimic human conversation has raised questions about the potential of generative AI or treating mental health conditions, especially in regions of the world, such as Asia, where mental health services are stretched thin and shrouded in stigma.
Some AI enthusiasts see chatbots as having the greatest potential in the treatment of milder, commonplace conditions such as anxiety and depression, the standard treatment of which involves a therapist listening to and validating a patient as well as offering practical steps for addressing his or her problems.
In theory, AI therapy could offer quicker and cheaper access to support than traditional mental health services, which suffer from staff shortages, long wait lists, and high costs, and allow sufferers to circumvent feelings of judgement and shame, especially in parts of the world where mental illness remains taboo.
ChatGPT has taken the world by storm since its launch in November [File: Florence Lo/Reuters]
“Psychotherapy is very expensive and even in places like Canada, where I’m from, and other countries, it’s super expensive, the waiting lists are really long,” Ashley Andreou, a medical student focusing on psychiatry at Georgetown University, told Al Jazeera.
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“People don’t have access to something that augments medication and is evidence-based treatment for mental health issues, and so I think that we need to increase access, and I do think that generative AI with a certified health professional will increase efficiency.”
The prospect of AI augmenting, or even leading, mental health treatment raises a myriad of ethical and practical concerns. These range from how to protect personal information and medical records, to questions about whether a computer programme will ever be truly capable of empathising with a patient or recognising warning signs such as the risk of self-harm.
While the technology behind ChatGPT is still in its infancy, the platform and its fellow chatbot rivals struggle to match humans in certain areas, such as recognising repeated questions, and can produce unpredictable, inaccurate or disturbing answers in response to certain prompts.
So far, AI’s use in dedicated mental health applications has been confined to “rules-based” systems in wellbeing apps such as Wysa, Heyy and Woebot.
While these apps mimic aspects of the therapy process, they use a set number of question-and-answer combinations that were chosen by a human, unlike ChatGPT and other platforms based on generative AI, which produces original responses that can be practically indistinguishable from human speech.
Some AI enthusiasts believe the technology could improve treatment of mental health conditions [File: Getty Images]
Generative AI is still considered too much of a “black box” – ie so complex that its decision-making processes are not fully understood by humans – to use in a mental health setting, said Ramakant Vempati, the founder of India-based Wysa.
“There’s obviously a lot of literature around how AI chat is booming with the launch of ChatGPT, and so on, but I think it is important to highlight that Wysa is very domain-specific and built very carefully with clinical safety guardrails in mind,” Vempati told Al Jazeera.
“And we don’t use generative text, we don’t use generative models. This is a constructed dialogue, so the script is pre-written and validated through a critical safety data set, which we have tested for user responses.”
Wysa’s trademark feature is a penguin that users can chat with, although they are confined to a set number of written responses, unlike the free-form dialogue of ChatGPT.
Paid subscribers to Wysa are also routed to a human therapist if their queries escalate. Heyy, developed in Singapore, and Woebot, based in the United States, follow a similar rules-based model and rely on live therapists and a robot-avatar chatbot to engage with users beyond offering resources like journaling, mindfulness techniques, and exercises focusing on common problems like sleep and relationship troubles.
All three apps draw from cognitive behavioural therapy, a standard form of treatment for anxiety and depression that focuses on changing the way a patient thinks and behaves.
Woebot founder Alison Darcy described the app’s model as a “highly complex decision tree”.
“This basic ‘shape’ of the conversation is modelled on how clinicians approach problems, thus they are ‘expert systems’ that are specifically designed to replicate how clinicians may move through decisions in the course of an interaction,” Darcy told Al Jazeera.
Heyy allows users to engage with a human therapist through an in-app chat function that is offered in a range of languages, including English and Hindi, as well as offering mental health information and exercises.
The founders of Wysa, Heyy, and Woebot all emphasise that they are not trying to replace human-based therapy but to supplement traditional services and provide an early-stage tool in mental health treatment.
The United Kingdom’s National Health Service, for example, recommends Wysa as a stopgap for patients waiting to see a therapist. While these rules-based apps are limited in their functions, the AI industry remains largely unregulated despite concerns that the rapidly-advancing field could pose serious risks to human wellbeing.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk has argued that the rollout of AI is happening too fast [File: Brendan Smialowski/AFP]
The break-neck speed of AI development prompted Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak last month to add their names to thousands of signatories of an open letter calling for a six-month pause on training AI systems more powerful than GPT-4, the follow-up to ChatGPT, to give researchers time to get a better grasp on the technology.
“Powerful AI systems should be developed only once we are confident that their effects will be positive and their risks will be manageable,” the letter said.
Earlier this year, a Belgian man reportedly committed suicide after being encouraged to by the AI chatbot Chai, while a New York Times columnist described being encouraged to leave his wife by Microsoft’s chatbot Bing.
AI regulation has been slow to match the speed of the technology’s progression, with China and the European Union taking the most concrete steps towards introducing guardrails.
The Cyberspace Administration of China earlier this month released draft regulations aimed at ensuring AI does not produce content that could undermine Beijing’s authority, while the EU is working on legislation that would categorise AI as high-risk and banned, regulated, or unregulated. The US has yet to propose federal legislation to regulate AI, although proposals are expected later this year.
At present, neither ChatGPT nor dedicated mental health apps like Wysa and Heyy, which are generally considered “wellness” services, are regulated by health watchdogs such as the US Food and Drug Administration or the European Medicines Agency.
There is limited independent research into whether AI could ever go beyond the rules-based apps currently on the market to autonomously offer mental health treatment that is on par with traditional therapy.
For AI to match a human therapist, it would need to be able to recreate the phenomenon of transference, where the patient projects feelings onto their therapist, and mimic the bond between patient and therapist.
“We know in the psychology literature, that part of the efficacy and what makes therapy work, about 40 to 50 percent of the effect is from the rapport that you get with your therapist,” Maria Hennessy, a clinical psychologist and associate professor at James Cook University, told Al Jazeera. “That makes up a huge part of how effective psychological therapies are.”
Current chatbots are incapable of this kind of interaction, and ChatGPT’s natural language processing capabilities, although impressive, have limits, Hennessy said.
“At the end of the day, it’s a fantastic computer program,” she said. “That’s all it is.”
The Cyberspace Administration of China earlier this month released draft regulations for the development and use of AI [File: Thomas Peter/Reuters]
Amelia Fiske, a senior research fellow at the Technical University of Munich’s Institute for the History and Ethics of Medicine, AI’s place in mental health treatment in the future may not be an either/or situation – for example, upcoming technology could be used in conjunction with a human therapist.
“An important thing to keep in mind is that like, when people talk about the use of AI in therapy, there’s this assumption that it all looks like Wysa or it all looks like Woebot, and it doesn’t need to,” Fiske told Al Jazeera.
Some experts believe AI may find its most valuable uses behind the scenes, such as carrying out research or helping human therapists to assess their patients’ progress.
“These machine learning algorithms are better than expert-rule systems when it comes to identifying patterns in data; it is very good at making associations in data and they are also very good at making predictions in data,” Tania Manríquez Roa, an ethicist and qualitative researcher at the University of Zurich’s Institute of Biomedical Ethics and History of Medicine, told Al Jazeera.
“It can be very helpful in conducting research on mental health and it can also be very helpful to identify early signs of relapse like depression, for example, or anxiety.”
Manríquez Roa said she was sceptical that AI could ever be used as a stand-in for clinical treatment.
“These algorithms and artificial intelligence are very promising, in a way, but I also think it can be very harmful,” Manríquez Roa said.
“I do think we are right to be ambivalent about algorithms and machine learning when it comes to mental health care because when we’re talking about mental health care, we’re talking about care and appropriate standards of care.”
“When we think about apps or algorithms … sometimes AI doesn’t solve our problems and it can create bigger problems,” she added. “We need to take a step back to think, ‘Do we need algorithms at all?’ and if we need them, what kind of algorithms are we going to use?”
Always referred to as simply Colonel Forster, Lieutenant Colonel Francis Rowland Forster was constantly by Sisi’s side when she came to Ireland. He accompanied Empress Elisabeth whilst hunting and represented the Viceroy at official welcomes and departures from the island.
Colonel Forster was Master of the Horse, the fourth most-important official in the Viceroy’s (Lord Lieutenant) household. He served many Viceroys including Earl Spencer and the Duke of Marlborough.
Forster joined the 4th Royal Irish Dragoon Guards and served with distinction in the Crimean War from October 1854 to July 1855. He was present at the battles of Balaclava and Inkerman and at the siege of Sebastapol. Colonel Forster was made Lieutenant Colonel in 1865 and effectively retired from the army in 1865.
In Dublin he took up the post of Master of the Horse five years before Empress Elisabeth went to Ireland and he served in the post for more than 25 years. Colonel Forster also became Chief Ranger of the Curragh, the home of Irish horse racing.
Forster served on Balrothery District Council. He was a supporter of the Liberals but did not agree with Gladstone on Home Rule for Ireland. In 1899 Colonel Forster told the council that if he could believe that Home Rule would not mean civil war he would gladly support it. The Nationalists dominated the council’s membership and in 1908 Colonel Forster was attacked for donating £15 to the cause of unionism.
He was buried at Mount Jerome Cemetery in South Dublin.
Personal note: search canisgallicus.com O’Donnellan ffrench Blake-Forster Sept. Names follow in families. I can’t seem to find Francis Rowland’s family and wonder if he is related.
Forster family genealogy
of County Galway
John O’Hart
Irish Pedigrees; or the Origin and Stem of the Irish Nation.
1892 (5th Edition)
Volume 2
Libarary Ireland HISTORY GENEALOGY CULTURE
CAPTAIN Francis Forster, Chief of Cloonene, who died 22nd September, 1698, married the daughter of Sir James O’Donnellan, Lord Chief Justice of Connaught, in 1637 (son of Chief of Clan Bresal), and had:
2. Major James Forster, High Sheriff of the county Galway in 1689-99, who married Eleanor, daughter of Colonel Gerald Burke of Tyaquin Castle, Co. Galway, and had:
1. John Forster of Crushnabawn, who d.s.p. in Dublin in 1702. This John married Mary, daughter of Charles Lambert, Esq., an adherent of King James II, and killed at Derry in 1689.
II. Captain Forster, of whom presently.
3. Captain Francis Forster, of Rathorpe; went to France after the Treaty of Limerick, returned in 1693 a Colonel. Succeeded to Cloonene on the death of his elder brother, s.p.; he died in 1720, leaving ten children, from whom the late Captain Blake Forster, of Forster-street, Galways was descened.
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