AI is promising to revolutionise how we diagnose mental illness
The last big breakthrough in treating depression was all the way back in the 1980s. That was when Prozac,
The last big breakthrough in treating depression was all the way back in the 1980s. That was when Prozac, the first SSRI antidepressant, was released. It and its subsequent copycats soon swept the globe, and hundreds of millions of people have now taken this kind of medication. But while three-quarters of people say the pills have helped them feel better, they don’t work for everyone. With rising rates of depression – and no major treatment advances since the advent of SSRIs – it seems almost inevitable that some hope that AI can be psychiatry’s next big thing.
The caveats are well known. Chatbots are only as good as the data they are trained on, have our own biases baked in and are prone to errors described by some as “hallucinations”. This week, we have news of a study that found that some of the best known AI models fail to give adequate advice for 60 per cent of queries relating to women’s health.
But AI could finally bring some much-needed objectivity to the slippery issue of diagnosis. Currently, depression is diagnosed via a list of symptoms that is vague and imprecise. By using AI to analyse subtle physical signs like our facial expressions and the cadence of our voices, psychiatry is finally starting to create the more defined biomarkers the field has longed for.
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AI could finally bring some much-needed objectivity to the slippery issue of diagnosis
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The implications could be profound. In the absence of further biomolecular advances, much progress of late has been in understanding the roles that factors like personal relationships and access to nature play in preventing depression. A recent review found the strongest evidence yet that exercise is as effective as antidepressants or cognitive behavioural therapy for treating depression, though it isn’t clear why, or who is most suited to this treatment.
If AI can finally help us answer the question of who would respond best to which treatments, it could change the lives of millions – providing developers protect against AI’s many flaws from the start. No one wants their psychiatrist to be hallucinating.
