There plenty of personal reasons not to use AI chatbots as therapists. They’re sycophantic, make for ineffective shrinks, and can be downright dangerous for anyone with preexisting mental illness — and sometimes even for people with none.
And that’s to say nothing of their effects on actual human therapists, many of whom say their profession is increasingly being strangled by the rise of low-effort, low-cost chatbots.
Some 2,400 mental health care workers staged a 24-hour strike in northern California this week, in protest over concerns that they’re being replaced with AI systems. The company they work for, Kaiser Permanente, has denied that any automation is taking place, but according to the workers and their union, the threat is becoming all too real.
“I’ve been reassigned from triage to other duties,” Ilana Marcucci-Morris, a licensed clinical social worker told NPR. “What used to always be a 10- to 15-minute screening from a licensed clinician like myself is now being conducted by unlicensed lay operators following a script, or e-visits, so an app is triaging members’ care needs.”
According to the Associated Press, the mental health care workers were joined by over 23,000 Kaiser nurses, a decisive show of force as the threat of automation rises.
“Part of our unfair labor practice strike really is about the erosion of licensed triage within the health plan,” Marucci-Morris told NPR. “There is a lot of fear and anxiety about AI, and in particular, fear around AI replacing jobs.”
The medical workers’ concerns aren’t just about mass layoffs. Like many workers throughout the US, they’re also concerned with worsening work conditions that follow AI initiatives — for example, management demands on mental health workers to fast-track charting with AI in order to squeeze more patient visits into a single shift.
“They’re trying to take all that time away,” Kaiser psychiatrist and union steward for the National Union of Healthcare Workers told the AP. “They really just want us to be seeing people back to back to back, to be seeing more people for less time with less resources.”
Katy Roemer, a family medicine nurse concurs.
“Is AI going to benefit patients? Is AI going to benefit the people that work for Kaiser Permanente?” she asked the AP. “Or is AI going to benefit the bottom line of the corporation?”
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