This article summarizes the use of artificial intelligence in the field of mental health, especially in suicide prevention. AI detects self-harm intentions on social media, but has limitations in emotion detection, requiring medical staff to make final decisions. The article emphasizes the key role of medical staff in AI-assisted mental health care and raises the importance of ethical and privacy issues. Future prospects point to a wider application of AI in the field of mental health, but technical limitations and ethical issues need to be addressed.
Artificial intelligence ( AI) in the field of mental health, especially in suicide prevention, has attracted widespread attention in recent years. Annika Marie Schoene, a research scientist from the Institute for Experimental Artificial Intelligence at Northeastern University (2024USNews American University Ranking: 53), pointed out that AI tools have great potential in treating mental health patients, especially in the context of a shortage of medical staff. Social media companies such as Meta use machine learning technology to detect posts that may contain self-harm intentions. However, studies have found that AI models have limitations in emotion detection, especially in the prediction of emotions in suicide-related content. Despite this, AI can still help medical staff understand the causes and factors of suicidal intent and analyze large amounts of data. However , the decision-making process should not rely entirely on algorithms, but should be made by professionals.
The Role of Artificial Intelligence In Suicide Prevention
The use of artificial intelligence in suicide prevention has become an important area of research. AI companies such as Samurai Labs use AI to analyze suicidal intent in social media posts and intervene through direct messages, providing hope for the nearly 50,000 suicide crises in the United States each year. Although social media is often blamed for contributing to the mental health and suicide crisis in the United States, some researchers believe that detecting and intervening directly at the source may be effective. Other companies such as Sentinet and Meta also use AI to mark posts or browsing behaviors that may indicate suicidal intent.
However, experts point out that there are still challenges in AI predicting suicide attempts , because suicide is complex and changeable, and AI models may have the risk of false positives. Despite this, the potential of AI on social media is still being explored, hoping to discover signs of suicide through big data analysis. At the same time, ethical and privacy issues also need attention, and social media platforms should strengthen measures to protect users' mental health.
The Limitations of AI In Emotion Detection
In a December 2023 news article about emotion recognition in AI, Edward B. Kang, a Steinhardt professor at New York University, noted concerns about the unreliable methods and limitations of current AI systems in recognizing emotions. He warned that speech emotion recognition technology is built on fragile assumptions about the science of emotion, which makes it not only technically inadequate but also socially harmful. Kang noted that these systems are creating exaggerated versions of humans, excluding those who may express emotions in ways that these systems don't understand.
He also talked about the applications of these systems in call centers, dating apps, etc., as well as their limitations and potential harms. Kang advised against applying emotion recognition technology to consumer products because it could be abused as an emotion monitoring tool. In addition, he talked about a toy robot called Moxie that uses multimodal AI emotion recognition to interact with children, but he questioned the application of this technology. In general, current AI voice emotion recognition systems have limitations and potential harms and need to be treated with caution.
Social Media Companies Use Machine Learning to Detect Self-Harm Intentions
On March 13, 2024, The Washington Post reported that predatory groups coerced children into self-harm on popular online platforms. These abusers used threats and blackmail to force vulnerable teenagers to perform humiliating and violent acts and show off. These groups used platforms such as Discord and Telegram to target children with mental health issues and force them to self-harm in front of the camera. The FBI issued a warning, identifying eight groups that targeted minors aged 8 to 17 for abuse. The report revealed the cruelty of these groups and the challenges social media platforms face in blocking them.
Social media companies such as Meta use machine learning to detect posts that may contain self-harm intentions. However, studies have found that AI models have limitations in emotion detection, especially in predicting the emotions of suicide-related content. Despite this, AI can still help medical staff understand the causes and factors of suicidal intent and analyze large amounts of data. However, the decision-making process should not rely entirely on algorithms, but should be made by professionals.
Ethical and Privacy Issues
When discussing the application of AI in the field of mental health, ethical and privacy issues cannot be ignored. When AI analyzes and processes large amounts of data, it may involve user privacy issues. Social media platforms should strengthen measures to protect users' mental health and ensure that users' data will not be abused. In addition, the application of AI in emotion recognition and suicide prevention also needs to consider ethical issues to ensure that the use of technology does not cause harm to users.
Future Outlook
Although the application of AI in the field of mental health still faces many challenges, its potential cannot be ignored. AI can help medical staff better understand and analyze the patient's mental state and provide personalized treatment plans. However, AI cannot completely replace human medical staff, and the final decision-making process still needs to be carried out by professionals.
In the future, as technology continues to advance, the application of AI in the field of mental health will become more extensive and in-depth. Researchers and developers need to continue to explore and improve AI technology to address its limitations in emotion recognition and suicide prevention. At the same time, social media platforms and related institutions also need to strengthen their attention to user privacy and ethical issues to ensure that the use of technology does not cause harm to users.
In general, AI has broad application prospects in the field of mental health, but it also needs to be treated with caution. Only when technical and ethical issues are fully addressed can AI truly realize its potential in the field of mental health and help more patients.
No comments:
Post a Comment