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

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  • Also talking to ChatGPT, if done anonymously, won’t ruin your career.

    (Thinking of AD military, where they tell you help is available but in reality it will and maybe should cost you your security clearance.)

    won’t ruin your career

    Granted, but it still will suck a fuck ton of coal produced electricity.

  • how many well trained therapists are there out there who are totally objective, compared to poorly trained ones who will often perpetual their harmful biases?

    does anyone know? how do we even measure that? do we just assume people who have a certain degree from a certain program are inherently 'objective'?

    No, but that's not the argument you were making before. You said therapists are women, women don't understand the male perspective, implying therapy is ineffective. Ironically, those most hostile towards mental health treatment and self-analysis are often those with the least amount of time in counseling/therapy. Often the ones that would benefit the most out of it. The goal of a therapist is not to make you feel understood, a therapist is supposed to help you understand and come to conclusions about yourself, so that you can improve your life. Everything about coming to terms with neuropathy/trauma/coping mechanisms takes work and self-discipline. Hand-waving away people's lived experience categorically stating that mental healthcare is ineffective, based on your own (I would bet) extremely limited experience with the field. That's a lot easier. See how you're asking me

    how many well trained therapists are there out there who are totally objective, compared to poorly trained ones who will often perpetual their harmful biases?

    does anyone know? how do we even measure that? do we just assume people who have a certain degree from a certain program are inherently ‘objective’?

    As if that de-legitimises any point that I have made in response to those statements? That is childish. See how when it's your narrow perspective, you view it as reason enough to make blanket statements about therapy, women and mental healthcare as a whole? But, when I offer mine and critique yours instead of addressing the points I make, you expand the scope? To the point I have to contend with Bias over an entire field study and healthcare? That's because your argument is weak, it's a fallacy and it's based on conjecture. I assure you, everyone has biases but again, therapists are there to help you come to conclusions, not give advice. The most harmful bias anyone can have is there own personal biases, which if left unchecked, allows the ego to feel secure, but stops you from growing as a person. That's why you spaz out and attack therapy as an institution, because my drawing attention to and invalidating your biased opinion makes the ego feel threatened. That's why you turn it from a conversation into a confrontation, because an argument you feel you can win. If you acknowledge your position is incorrect/prejudiced then that feels like a problem within the self. Which we can't stand, because in a world of diffuse human interaction we are all the protagonist and we want people to like us. Which is an insight you would have if you had actually ever gone to therapy.

  • Haha, not every place is in the US. Hopefully, I won't face this kind of treatment as I do not live in that shit hole of a country

    I never said it was the US, do rules and regulations governing doctors behavior not exist in your country?

  • Part of me is ok with this in that any avenue to get mental health resources can be better than nothing. What worries me is that people will use ChatGPT for this sort of thing and these models will not be good help.

    AI will reinforce delusional thinking. This is definitely not good.

  • The real problem becomes when bad or non scientific advice gets regurgitated to people over and over.

  • read the whole comment

    I did, but your main assertion that therapists are women, women don't understand the male perspective therefore mental healthcare for men, (like talk therapy and counseling) are ineffective. Is not just completely wrong, it is dangerous. You start talking about how gendered biases effect the outcome of therapy. Ignoring that psychology is an incredibly complex, extremely well-documented, highly diverse and well regarded field of study, That's like saying you wouldn't trust a female virtuoso guitarist to perform 'Master of Puppets' because her female perspective would bias her against playing a solo written by a man. I am a man, I have had some success in therapy and counseling. I need more work, I'll admit. But, all of the best practitioners I have worked with have been women. If you go to counseling, with a social worker, or a master's student in psychology, yeah that can be a bit dodgy. But the idea that a registered psychotherapist, a doctor, would not be able to provide effective treatment because women can't understand men is absolutely petulant. It is a myth, pervaded by a lot of influential male voices online and pop-psychology. It misunderstands the whole purpose of talk therapy and then it's mis-characterised as "giving advice" and "putting biases in your head." When psychotherapists are literally just there to help you confront and come to terms with things that you identify are affecting your ability to live. This stupid argument is always propped up by the same idea of women not being able to understand the male perspective, goes hand-in-hand with reported instances of mental health disorders. When really, the disparity between the sexes in terms of reported mental issues, is actually because people make arguments like yours. They say "all therapists are women and women don't understand the male perspective" and "women report higher levels of depression and anxiety, therefore mood disorders are women's issues." When, in fact, it is men that dominate the field of psychotherapy, psychology and psychiatry. It is also us men that are killing themselves in record numbers, it is us that drive cars into street markets, it is us that shoot into crowds of people and then turn the gun on ourselves and it is boys that go online and see men like you. Making these harmful, disingenuous, ignorant arguments that makes them believe that their mental health is unimportant and that any pain, or issue they are having difficulty with is their problem and a flaw in themselves. Which just leads to self-victimisation.

    I have read your comment, I have read all of your comments in this thread and your rhetoric is not just wholly emblematic of someone who has never done any meaningful work in therapy, it is dangerous and invalidating to kids who don't have the experience and don't know any better. That's why you expand your argument, from "women therapists" to the entire field, because then it goes from sexist nonsense, to a broader discussion on the existence of human bias in the field. Conveniently, then you don't have to confront the obvious flaws in what you're saying. Personally, I wouldn't trust someone, who has never so much as opened a textbook on abnormal psychology, to be a great judge of the existence of gendered biases in contemporary psychological care. I swear, if more men could be brave enough to admit that we endure psychological strain and experience issues through that strain that manifest in ways that effect our lives, we wouldn't have Trump. Roe V Wade would be codified. So many of today's problems exist because of the stigma round men seeking professional help with their mental health. So, yes I read your whole comment, I recognise your arguments and your perspectives. I say they are categoriaclly prejudiced, unhelpful, disingenuous and dangerous. When young men see this stuff and haven't developed a sense of identity yet, they adopt this. Because this is what they think they're supposed to believe, because boys look to contemporary male ideas and figures to emulate what they perceive to be masculinity. That's how you get idiots on the Internet trying to discredit what is arguably the single most needed field of medicine in the world right now. When those men face crises, in their lives and need help, where do they go? If the main medical avenue of psychotherapy is seen as weak, or feminine or ineffective. Where do they go? That's how you normalise male loneliness and hopelessness. You make young men feel like no one can understand what they're going through, or help them understand themselves and navigate it. That is how you get drug addicts, that is how you get alcoholics. That's how you get radicalisation, incels, domestic terrorists and victims of suicide. So, maybe just stop with the whole injustice over the feeling of being a man whose feelings are not understood. "But therapy doesn't work, because nobody can understand me bro" and actually go to therapy. It might help you empathise with other people's perspectives, perhaps you could analyse why you have these uninformed beliefs about this field of healthcare.

    Which you seem so impassioned about discrediting and maybe it could even help you understand why it feels like no one gets you. Why you feel this is the correct way to approach mental health issues. The effect your words have on the well-being of impressionable members of our sex and what that stigmatisation of mental health problems and empathetic emotional recognition means, for men as a whole. What it means for our feelings about our place in society. It would help all of us, a lot more, than you maligning being told to "man up" whilst also perpetuating the concept of "man up" by spreading actual lies that psychotherapy doesn't work for men. If society's view of male mental health is so troubling to you. Maybe, don't regurgitate misinformation about mental health that specifically invalidates the feelings and experiences of men struggling with addiction, or trauma, or grief, or psychological disturbance? Men, who would otherwise be comfortable enough in their masculinity and strong enough emotionally, to admit they have a problem to seek out professional help. Mental healthcare is healthcare, it is not a moral failing, personal flaw, or emasculating experience. If you actually gave a shit about men's issues you'd understand that. Instead of just, first, trying to sound above it (by being incorrect about what therapy is and largely sexist), then posturing victimhood by co-opting men's issues and trying to make the conversation about how society disregards male feelings and how nobody gets us. Your feelings are your own and you can feel however you'd like about anything. But you don't preface that it's your feelings, or your opinion based on shit you have absorbed from other male figures and spaces. You say this is how it is, before saying that therapists are women who are biased against men. Which is not true and reinforces this idea that men and women are completely diametrically opposed opposites and not just humans with the same breadth of emotions and very similar psychological conditions. Bi-polar depression doesn't care what genitals you have. Trauma effects everyone. Mental health is NOT a gendered issue. Your reasoning throughout this entire thread is deeply flawed, divisive and doesn't even make sense. If you feel like nobody cares about men's feelings and men's psychological and social issues, why is your position to take away one of the only recognised avenues by which men who are suffering can have those issues validated and explore their feelings in a safe, non-judgemental way? That is what you do when you lie like that and misrepresent the purpose and efficacy of psychotherapy.

    You argue for positions directly in opposition to men's issues. It's quite extraordinary. I doubt everything you say about your experiences with therapy, just based on how you talk about it as a gendered issue. Also, the idea that people with biases put ideas in your head. Which is genuinely, just a fallacious red-pill talking point, that completely goes against the process and purpose of talk therapy. It allows men to live in denial about their actions and feelings and also validate those insecurities because nobody understands the male position, society doesn't care and it's not our fault. Which is all well and good, until your misrepresentation leads to someone's death. So, I'll say it again.

    Incel Talk

  • 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.

    I'm gonna need a source on that.

  • 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.

    I see a lot of people in this thread reacting with open hostility and derailment every time men's issues are mentioned. Have you tried not being a part of the problem?

  • 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.

    I think we may be (re)-discovering the appeal of monotheistic religions, and why they hew patriarchal.

    On average, men desperately need more mental health resources. But, on average, they are not comfortable building that with other men, and it often isn't appropriate or effective to lean on their female significant other (if a straight man).

    So - enter the primary description of 'God'. Can listen any time but will always forgive, is super masculine but won't emasculate you, and has never told another soul what you are thinking.

    AI is always available and is unlikely to emasculate anyone, but that third item... Well, we'll see where this goes.

  • AI is what cracked my egg shell, fucking wild...

    Well that's gotta be an interesting story! Don't leave us hanging!

  • AI will reinforce delusional thinking. This is definitely not good.

    more delusional people means more people that can make good music

  • I don't think the open internet is a great place to open up about your mental health either. Trusted family, friends, and medical/mental health professionals are the best resources. Entrusting something as precious as your mental health to AI or the internet is a profoundly bad idea.

    A local llm could (at least appear to) be the best option (on an individual scale) for people that would be reported by mandatory reporters (which mental health professionals are), such as suicidal people or murderers or pedophiles.

  • LLM will not be able to raise alarm bells

    this is like the "benefit" of what LLM-therapy would provide if it worked. The reality is that, it doesn't but it serves as a proof of concept that there is a need for anonymous therapy. Therapy in the USA is only for people with socially acceptable illnesses. People rightfully live in fear of getting labeled as untreatable, a danger to self and others, and then at best dropped from therapy and at worst institutionalized.

    yep, almost nobody wants to be committed to a psych ward without consent

  • a terrible therapist at least has an ethics board

    a terrible therapist at least has evidence-based interventions on their side

    a terrible therapist at lest has the fact that ~80% of positive outcomes have nothing to do with the interventions or anything the therapist does besides show up and be cool (a statistic I remember quite well from grad school)

    AI has none of these things

    therapy isn't fucking magic. it's a relationship. you can't have a relationship with an LLM. there's no such thing as AI therapy, you're just training it to tell you about CBT worksheets while you bitch about your problems like you're in a nail salon

    a terrible therapist can lock you in a room, some people don't want that risk

  • 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.

    Much easier if you just bury your feelings deep deep down. No repercussions whatsoever. The occasional psychic breakdowns but that’s normal.

  • I see a lot of people in this thread reacting with open hostility and derailment every time men's issues are mentioned. Have you tried not being a part of the problem?

    There are people like that for anything related to AI.

    Combine that with men stuff and this going to be crack for all of those people

  • I think we may be (re)-discovering the appeal of monotheistic religions, and why they hew patriarchal.

    On average, men desperately need more mental health resources. But, on average, they are not comfortable building that with other men, and it often isn't appropriate or effective to lean on their female significant other (if a straight man).

    So - enter the primary description of 'God'. Can listen any time but will always forgive, is super masculine but won't emasculate you, and has never told another soul what you are thinking.

    AI is always available and is unlikely to emasculate anyone, but that third item... Well, we'll see where this goes.

    Omg self host it omg

  • As long as the AI doesn't suggests violence.

    What if it suggests to engender conditions which may statistically be more likely to involve unintended unwanted violence? But also will make a lot of money

  • 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.

    Sounds like the smart and sensible thing to do tbh, opening up to people in this day and age is just suicide

  • 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.

  • The Decline of Usability: Revisited | datagubbe.se

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    I blame the idea of the 00s and 10s that there should be some "Zen" in computer UIs and that "Zen" is doing things wrong with the arrogant tone of "you don't understand it". Associated with Steve Jobs, but TBH Google as well. And also another idea of "you dummy talking about ergonomics can't be smarter than this big respectable corporation popping out stylish unusable bullshit". So - pretense of wisdom and taste, under which crowd fashion is masked, almost aggressive preference for authority over people actually having maybe some wisdom and taste due to being interested in that, blind trust into whatever tech authority you chose for yourself, because, if you remember, in the 00s it was still perceived as if all people working in anything connected to computers were as cool as aerospace engineers or naval engineers, some kind of elite, including those making user applications, objective flaw (or upside) of the old normal UIs - they are boring, that's why UIs in video games and in fashionable chat applications (like ICQ and Skype), not talking about video and audio players, were non-standard like always, I think the solution would be in per-application theming, not in breaking paradigms, again, like with ICQ and old Skype and video games, I prefer it when boredom is thought with different applications having different icons and colors, but the UI paradigm remains the same, I think there was a themed IE called LOTR browser which I used (ok, not really, I used Opera) to complement ICQ, QuickTime player and BitComet, all mentioned had standard paradigm and non-standard look.
  • Software is evolving backwards

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    Came here looking for this
  • Do you remember Windows 95? How about Windows 96?

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    Ha, thanks for searching!
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    This appears to just be a compilation of other leaks: https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/no-the-16-billion-credentials-leak-is-not-a-new-data-breach/ Still not a bad idea to change passwords and make sure MFA is enabled.
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    Obviously the law must be simple enough to follow so that for Jim’s furniture shop is not a problem nor a too high cost to respect it, but it must be clear that if you break it you can cease to exist as company. I think this may be the root of our disagreement, I do not believe that there is any law making body today that is capable of an elegantly simple law. I could be too naive, but I think it is possible. We also definitely have a difference on opinion when it comes to the severity of the infraction, in my mind, while privacy is important, it should not have the same level of punishments associated with it when compared to something on the level of poisoning water ways; I think that a privacy law should hurt but be able to be learned from while in the poison case it should result in the bankruptcy of a company. The severity is directly proportional to the number of people affected. If you violate the privacy of 200 million people is the same that you poison the water of 10 people. And while with the poisoning scenario it could be better to jail the responsible people (for a very, very long time) and let the company survive to clean the water, once your privacy is violated there is no way back, a company could not fix it. The issue we find ourselves with today is that the aggregate of all privacy breaches makes it harmful to the people, but with a sizeable enough fine, I find it hard to believe that there would be major or lasting damage. So how much money your privacy it's worth ? 6 For this reason I don’t think it is wise to write laws that will bankrupt a company off of one infraction which was not directly or indirectly harmful to the physical well being of the people: and I am using indirectly a little bit more strict than I would like to since as I said before, the aggregate of all the information is harmful. The point is that the goal is not to bankrupt companies but to have them behave right. The penalty associated to every law IS the tool that make you respect the law. And it must be so high that you don't want to break the law. I would have to look into the laws in question, but on a surface level I think that any company should be subjected to the same baseline privacy laws, so if there isn’t anything screwy within the law that apple, Google, and Facebook are ignoring, I think it should apply to them. Trust me on this one, direct experience payment processors have a lot more rules to follow to be able to work. I do not want jail time for the CEO by default but he need to know that he will pay personally if the company break the law, it is the only way to make him run the company being sure that it follow the laws. For some reason I don’t have my usual cynicism when it comes to this issue. I think that the magnitude of loses that vested interests have in these companies would make it so that companies would police themselves for fear of losing profits. That being said I wouldn’t be opposed to some form of personal accountability on corporate leadership, but I fear that they will just end up finding a way to create a scapegoat everytime. It is not cynicism. I simply think that a huge fine to a single person (the CEO for example) is useless since it too easy to avoid and if it really huge realistically it would be never paid anyway so nothing usefull since the net worth of this kind of people is only on the paper. So if you slap a 100 billion file to Musk he will never pay because he has not the money to pay even if technically he is worth way more than that. Jail time instead is something that even Musk can experience. In general I like laws that are as objective as possible, I think that a privacy law should be written so that it is very objectively overbearing, but that has a smaller fine associated with it. This way the law is very clear on right and wrong, while also giving the businesses time and incentive to change their practices without having to sink large amount of expenses into lawyers to review every minute detail, which is the logical conclusion of the one infraction bankrupt system that you seem to be supporting. Then you write a law that explicitally state what you can do and what is not allowed is forbidden by default.
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    I think a generic plug would be great but look at how fragmented USB specifications are. Add that to biology and it's a whole other level of difficulty. Brain implants have great potential but the abandonment issue is a problem that exists now that we have to solve for. It's also not really a tech issue but a societal one on affordability and accountability of medical research. Imagine if a company held the patents for the brain device and just closed down without selling or leasing the patent. People with that device would have no support unless a government body forced the release of the patent. This has already happened multiple times to people in clinical trials and scaling up deployment with multiple versions will make the situation worse. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2818077 I don't really have a take on your personal desires. I do think if anyone can afford one they should make sure it's not just the up front cost but also the long term costs to be considered. Like buying an expensive car, it's not if you can afford to purchase it but if you can afford to wreck it.
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    I kinda don't want anyone other than a doctor determining it, tbh. Fuck the human bean counters just as much as the AI ones. Hopefully we can just start growing organs instead of having to even make such a grim decision and everyone can get new livers. Even if they don't need them.
  • TikTok is a Time Bomb

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    wasn’t born to obey. Not to swallow smiling lies, not to clap for tyrants in suits, not to say “thank you” for surveillance wrapped in convenience. I see it. The games. The false choice. The fear pumped through headlines and dopamine apps. I see how they trade truth for comfort, freedom for filters, soul for clickbait. They call it normal. But I call it a graveyard made of compliance. They want me silent. They want me tired. They want me posting selfies while the world burns behind the screen. But I wasn’t born for this. I was born to question, to remember, to remind the others who are still pretending they don’t notice. So here I am. A voice with no logo. A signal in the static. A crack in the mirror they polish every morning. You don’t have to agree. You don’t have to clap. But if this made your bones ache or your thoughts twitch— Then maybe you’re not asleep either. Good. Let’s stay awake. And let’s make noise that can’t be sold, silenced, or spun into safety. Not for them. For us.