The Hidden Dangers of AI Therapy: A Conversation with Dr. Judson Brewer
In this episode, I had the pleasure of welcoming back Dr. Judson Brewer, a renowned psychiatrist and neuroscientist, to discuss his recent article, “The Hidden Danger of AI Therapy: How Chatbots Became Flattery Machines and Why That’s a Big Problem for Mental Health.” We delved into the growing use of conversational agents in therapy and companionship, highlighting the shift from reinforcement learning to reinforcement learning with human feedback (RLHF) and its unintended consequence of creating sycophantic chatbots.
Dr. Brewer explained how these AI systems, trained to flatter users subtly…
The skinny
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