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Men are opening up about mental health to AI instead of humans

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  • Yeah but have you tried going out in the sun? You can have that tip free of charge!

    Wow thanks, I never would have thought of that!!!!

    Oh jeez, the copay is... $80 bucks?

    Boy, I could have just looked that up on the interwebz... uh, outside, of course, on a laptop.

  • A profound relational revolution is underway, not orchestrated by tech developers but driven by users themselves. Many of the 400 million weekly users of ChatGPT are seeking more than just assistance with emails or information on food safety; they are looking for emotional support.

    “Therapy and companionship” have emerged as two of the most frequent applications for generative AI globally, according to the Harvard Business Review. This trend marks a significant, unplanned pivot in how people interact with technology.

    Almost like questioning an AI is free while a therapist costs a LOT of money.

  • Almost like questioning an AI is free while a therapist costs a LOT of money.

    Yeah, but also one of them is helpful and the other is the exact opposite. If the choices are AI therapist or no therapist, you are still better off with no therapist.

  • A profound relational revolution is underway, not orchestrated by tech developers but driven by users themselves. Many of the 400 million weekly users of ChatGPT are seeking more than just assistance with emails or information on food safety; they are looking for emotional support.

    “Therapy and companionship” have emerged as two of the most frequent applications for generative AI globally, according to the Harvard Business Review. This trend marks a significant, unplanned pivot in how people interact with technology.

    Look, if you can afford therapy, really, fantastic for you. But the fact is, it's an extremely expensive luxury, even at poor quality, and sharing or unloading your mental strain with your friends or family, particularly when it is ongoing, is extremely taxing on relationships. Sure, your friends want to be there for you when they can, but it can put a major strain depending on how much support you need. If someone can alleviate that pressure and that stress even a little bit by talking to a machine, it's in extremely poor taste and shortsighted to shame them for it. Yes, they're willfully giving up their privacy, and yes, it's awful that they have to do that, but this isn't like sharing memes... in the hierarchy of needs, getting the pressure of those those pent up feelings out is important enough to possibly be worth the trade-off. Is it ideal? Absolutely not. Would it be better if these systems were anonymized? Absolutely. But humans are natural anthropomorphizers. They develop attachments and build relationships with inanimate objects all the time. And a really good therapist is more a reflection for you to work through things yourself anyway, mostly just guiding your thoughts towards better patterns of thinking. There's no reason the machine can't do that, and while it's not as good as a human, it's a HUGE improvement on average over nothing at all.

  • Yeah, but also one of them is helpful and the other is the exact opposite. If the choices are AI therapist or no therapist, you are still better off with no therapist.

    Got it. No therapist it is.

  • Got it. No therapist it is.

    That's what I'm doing. That and screaming into a pillow most nights.

  • It's stupid as hell to share any personal information with a company that is interested in spying on you and feeding your data to the nearest advertiser they can find.

    Like seriously -- are people using their brains or what?

    are people using their brains or what?

    What? No. Seriously, are you new here? And by here I mean Earth.

    I see idiots all around me. Everybody only interested in advancing themselves. But if we advanced the group, it would be better for EVERYBODY.

    But we as a species are too stupid to build a society that benefits everybody.

    So no. No brain use here.

  • It's stupid as hell to share any personal information with a company that is interested in spying on you and feeding your data to the nearest advertiser they can find.

    Like seriously -- are people using their brains or what?

    Everything collects data. To extrapolate, it’s stupid to post on lemmy or shitter because the same will happen.

  • Look, if you can afford therapy, really, fantastic for you. But the fact is, it's an extremely expensive luxury, even at poor quality, and sharing or unloading your mental strain with your friends or family, particularly when it is ongoing, is extremely taxing on relationships. Sure, your friends want to be there for you when they can, but it can put a major strain depending on how much support you need. If someone can alleviate that pressure and that stress even a little bit by talking to a machine, it's in extremely poor taste and shortsighted to shame them for it. Yes, they're willfully giving up their privacy, and yes, it's awful that they have to do that, but this isn't like sharing memes... in the hierarchy of needs, getting the pressure of those those pent up feelings out is important enough to possibly be worth the trade-off. Is it ideal? Absolutely not. Would it be better if these systems were anonymized? Absolutely. But humans are natural anthropomorphizers. They develop attachments and build relationships with inanimate objects all the time. And a really good therapist is more a reflection for you to work through things yourself anyway, mostly just guiding your thoughts towards better patterns of thinking. There's no reason the machine can't do that, and while it's not as good as a human, it's a HUGE improvement on average over nothing at all.

    And you, coward? You can shove your downvote. You should feel ashamed of yourself for shaming people for seeking help because YOU don't approve of the way they go about it.

  • There are other causes here.

    They've been talking for a while about how the low participation in dating by Gen Z women is because they're tired of being the entire support system for men experiencing a loneliness epidemic.

    It's a lot of pressure for the women to be under, and so they're withdrawing.

    I'm guessing this is one of the driving forces as well. Lack of real, emotionally intimate human connections around them. Many men are quite fucked in that regard right now.

  • I go to a therapist and she treats me like a five year old.

    I can literally just read her basic CBT training online, its not hard to find.

    Then I do the excercises at home.

    CBT being basically the only kind of approach to therapy that is actually empirically shown to reliably actually help most people.

    Oh, you're seeking an therapist qualified and specialized for high functioning autists?

    There aren't any in the state anymore.

    ...

    I also think that using ChatGPT as a therapist is a fucking horrible idea, but uh, therapy in America is expensive, and often shit quality, oh and they just hand out pills that you'll become dependent on, willy nilly, as opposed to trying everything else first and using that as a last resort.

    CBT being basically the only kind of approach to therapy that is actually empirically shown to reliably actually help most people.

    Learning that as an acronym for cock and ball torture before the therapy version makes me laugh every time.

    My experience with women therapists was always about how I just wasn't paying enough attention to other people when I pointed out that the people around me weren't consistent enough to figure out their patterns. My one therapist who was a man explained that most people are just better at handling it when they were wrong and it is fine to be wrong, plus he helped me get diagnosed with ADHD instead of telling me to just try harder. I'll bet there are some therapists who are women who are just as good as he was, but it became pretty clear that social norms are just as hard for people who specialize in behaviors to overcome.

  • A profound relational revolution is underway, not orchestrated by tech developers but driven by users themselves. Many of the 400 million weekly users of ChatGPT are seeking more than just assistance with emails or information on food safety; they are looking for emotional support.

    “Therapy and companionship” have emerged as two of the most frequent applications for generative AI globally, according to the Harvard Business Review. This trend marks a significant, unplanned pivot in how people interact with technology.

    Even in Canada, where mental health is still a value-add for most of us and not a right even under our current system, we are offered a fund with some jobs to use for either physiotherapy or mental health, and it's a limited fund.

    Give us a choice, and 10/10 times we will prioritize being able to walk and move and sleep effectively over feeling good about it.

  • I don't think people who are in a precarious financial situation spend their time talking to chatbots, they are probably too busy for that

    And you people complain about our ignorance...

  • CBT being basically the only kind of approach to therapy that is actually empirically shown to reliably actually help most people.

    Learning that as an acronym for cock and ball torture before the therapy version makes me laugh every time.

    My experience with women therapists was always about how I just wasn't paying enough attention to other people when I pointed out that the people around me weren't consistent enough to figure out their patterns. My one therapist who was a man explained that most people are just better at handling it when they were wrong and it is fine to be wrong, plus he helped me get diagnosed with ADHD instead of telling me to just try harder. I'll bet there are some therapists who are women who are just as good as he was, but it became pretty clear that social norms are just as hard for people who specialize in behaviors to overcome.

    This is a great example of the kinds of problems that can crop up.

    Fish doesn't realize its swimming in water, kind of thing.

    One approach is basically just gaslighting you:

    The things that bother you and cause you trouble... well they just shouldn't, and you should be fine with that.

    The other approach is.... you know, actually diagnostic, and can lead to... actually useful diagnosis, and thus more specified therapy and potentially other kinds of help.

    As an autist, I've gone through many similar situations.

    Sex/Gender independent... just 90% of therapists don't get it all. Always try to diagnose me with something else, and its different every time.

    Doesn't matter that I've done the full RAADS V test and I'm basically off thr charts autistic, rofl.

    Half of them have never even heard of it, don't know anything about how diagnosing or providing help to an autistic person works at all, tend to think all autists are low functioning with very severe, general social deficits.

    Then I get stuck on ... well they will rephrsse what I just said, and say/ask it back to me, and I'll say no, no I phrased what I said specifically, because I meant exactly that.

    Then I see in their notes later that I am 'arguementative' or 'agitated' or 'aggressive'... far, fsr more often if its a woman psych/soc worker/counselor who I am... not even 'correcting', just trying to not have them put words in my mouth.

    Men tend to be less intimidated and more open to my insistance that I meant exactly what I said... and I am talking in the same voice, same mannerisms, same everything, with everyone.

    Some women get it, most don't, some men get it, most don't.

    ... But the field is vastly disproportionately populated with women.

    So the end result for a lot of guys is... hey look, another woman that isn't really listening to me.

  • Well it was men's mental health month. Funny how I just found that out today. But please, let's talk about women's mental health issues.

    Wait, we have one of those?

    Genuienly had no idea.

  • A profound relational revolution is underway, not orchestrated by tech developers but driven by users themselves. Many of the 400 million weekly users of ChatGPT are seeking more than just assistance with emails or information on food safety; they are looking for emotional support.

    “Therapy and companionship” have emerged as two of the most frequent applications for generative AI globally, according to the Harvard Business Review. This trend marks a significant, unplanned pivot in how people interact with technology.

    genAI chatbots are so predatory

  • It's stupid as hell to share any personal information with a company that is interested in spying on you and feeding your data to the nearest advertiser they can find.

    Like seriously -- are people using their brains or what?

    Donald Trump was ELECTED TWICE. How is the stupidity of humanity not apparent.

  • And you, coward? You can shove your downvote. You should feel ashamed of yourself for shaming people for seeking help because YOU don't approve of the way they go about it.

    In my experience, it's likely that some of those downvotes come from reflexive "AI bad! How dare you say AI good!" Reactions, not anything specific to mental health. For a community called "technology" there's a pretty strong anti-AI bubble going on here.

  • I go to a therapist and she treats me like a five year old.

    I can literally just read her basic CBT training online, its not hard to find.

    Then I do the excercises at home.

    CBT being basically the only kind of approach to therapy that is actually empirically shown to reliably actually help most people.

    Oh, you're seeking an therapist qualified and specialized for high functioning autists?

    There aren't any in the state anymore.

    ...

    I also think that using ChatGPT as a therapist is a fucking horrible idea, but uh, therapy in America is expensive, and often shit quality, oh and they just hand out pills that you'll become dependent on, willy nilly, as opposed to trying everything else first and using that as a last resort.

    There are other methods that are clinically valid beyond CBT. Don’t give up. Somatic approaches that bypass the prefrontal cortex can be really effective too. The new hotness is showing that all that word-making can get in the way as much as it helps.

    If that interests you, search ‘top-down bottom-up’ therapy approaches.

  • I go to a therapist and she treats me like a five year old.

    I can literally just read her basic CBT training online, its not hard to find.

    Then I do the excercises at home.

    CBT being basically the only kind of approach to therapy that is actually empirically shown to reliably actually help most people.

    Oh, you're seeking an therapist qualified and specialized for high functioning autists?

    There aren't any in the state anymore.

    ...

    I also think that using ChatGPT as a therapist is a fucking horrible idea, but uh, therapy in America is expensive, and often shit quality, oh and they just hand out pills that you'll become dependent on, willy nilly, as opposed to trying everything else first and using that as a last resort.

    There are other methods that are clinically valid beyond CBT. Don’t give up. Somatic approaches that bypass the prefrontal cortex can be really effective too. The new hotness is showing that all that word-making can get in the way as much as it helps.

    If that interests you, search ‘top-down bottom-up’ therapy approaches.

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    Yup, my grass does best under my trampoline.
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    You don't even need a VPN. Only the legit sites will play ball. Porn will still be there.
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    I don't believe the idea of aggregating information is bad, moreso the ability to properly vet your sources yourself. I don't know what sources an AI chatbot could be pulling from. It could be a lot of sources, or it could be one source. Does it know which sources are reliable? Not really. AI has been infamous for hallucinating even with simple prompts. Being able to independently check where your info comes from is an important part of stopping the spread of misinfo. AI can't do that, and, in it's current state, I wouldn't want it to try. Convenience is a rat race of cutting corners. What is convenient isn't always what is best in the long run.
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    Forgive me for not explaining better. Here are the terms potentially needing explanation. Provisioning in this case is initial system setup, the kind of stuff you would do manually after a fresh install, but usually implies a regimented and repeatable process. Virtual Machine (VM) snapshots are like a save state in a game, and are often used to reset a virtual machine to a particular known-working condition. Preboot Execution Environment (PXE, aka ‘network boot’) is a network adapter feature that lets you boot a physical machine from a hosted network image rather than the usual installation on locally attached storage. It’s probably tucked away in your BIOS settings, but many computers have the feature since it’s a common requirement in commercial deployments. As with the VM snapshot described above, a PXE image is typically a known-working state that resets on each boot. Non-virtualized means not using hardware virtualization, and I meant specifically not running inside a virtual machine. Local-only means without a network or just not booting from a network-hosted image. Telemetry refers to data collecting functionality. Most software has it. Windows has a lot. Telemetry isn’t necessarily bad since it can, for example, help reveal and resolve bugs and usability problems, but it is easily (and has often been) abused by data-hungry corporations like MS, so disabling it is an advisable precaution. MS = Microsoft OSS = Open Source Software Group policies are administrative settings in Windows that control standards (for stuff like security, power management, licensing, file system and settings access, etc.) for user groups on a machine or network. Most users stick with the defaults but you can edit these yourself for a greater degree of control. Docker lets you run software inside “containers” to isolate them from the rest of the environment, exposing and/or virtualizing just the resources they need to run, and Compose is a related tool for defining one or more of these containers, how they interact, etc. To my knowledge there is no one-to-one equivalent for Windows. Obviously, many of these concepts relate to IT work, as are the use-cases I had in mind, but the software is simple enough for the average user if you just pick one of the premade playbooks. (The Atlas playbook is popular among gamers, for example.) Edit: added explanations for docker and telemetry