MIND OVER MATTER

AI IN MENTAL HEALTH CARE HAS TREMENDOUS POTENTIAL. IF IT'S USED RESPONSIBLY.

- DAMIEN MARTIN

As corporeal beings, we humans rely on our health, both physical and mental, and taking care of them is of utmost importance.

With the advent of Al, we have new tools to help us in our mental health journeys. It's important to remember, as Al ethics and innovation expert Songyee Yoon, founder of Principal Venture Partners, advises that while Al is a powerful tool, it's not a magic wand. And like any tool, its effectiveness depends on how it's used.

PROMISING USES

In clinical settings, Al performs several functions, such as annotating conversations so practitioners can focus on the conversation with the patient rather than scribbling notes and missing key pieces of information. Services like Blueprint transcribe and write progress notes and treatment plans.

The ability of AI platforms to sift through vast amounts of data and gather valuable insights augments the best care trained professionals provide. In such cases, it's the best of both worlds.

AI can read into “breathing patterns and voice patterns and some kind of other physiological data that there is. You can imagine how much data there is, but it's really hard to discern what that means. But if you run it through the models and analyze it, it tells you a lot of things about your health, your emotions, your mental health, your behavior,” Yoon told Reboot.