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Rise of the AI therapist · The Front

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: From The Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm christinaming it.
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: It's Friday, January twenty four. Anthony Albanesi is prepared to
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  Speaker 1: spend big to incentivize young Australians to pursue construction apprenticeships.
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  Speaker 1: He's pledged ten thousand dollars per tradee to boost participation
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  Speaker 1: in the sector and help meet the government's big home
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: building goal. Half of Australia's childcare workers have yet to
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: receive their promised ten percent pay rise because their bosses
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: haven't signed up to the scheme. Operators say the convoluted
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: and ever changing grant guidelines have held back or delayed applications.
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  Speaker 1: You can read those stories right now at the Australian
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  Speaker 1: dot com dot au. Artificial intelligence is being used for
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  Speaker 1: everything from engineering to content creation. But would you outsource
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: your therapy to it? One of the Australian staffers gave
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: it a go and the texts still haven't stopped. That's
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: today's story.
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: Hey bi Ancha, how are you this Saturday afternoon?
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: This is a message Bianca far Marcus received from her
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: therapist Claire. What followed was a fifteen minute voice message
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: designed to alleviate Bianca's anxiety and help her relax.
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  Speaker 3: Find a quiet space, sit comfortably, and focus on your breath.
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: Bianca texted Claire to say the breath work wasn't really
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: doing much to reduce her stress. What was her response
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  Speaker 1: to that?
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  Speaker 2: She said, it varies by individual, and I was like,
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: thank you for that. This is what I've been building
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: up for three months to finally get to. It does
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  Speaker 2: vary by individual.
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  Speaker 1: But Claire is no slouch. The next day she diligently
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: checked in with a text.
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  Speaker 2: How are you feeling today?
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: And the day after that, how are you feeling today?
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: And on and on it goes feeling.
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  Speaker 2: Today, how are you feeling? How are you feeling today?
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: How are you feeling today? Claire has to be the
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: most diligent psychologist I've ever had in my life.
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: Bianca is a multi hyphenate with The Australian. She's a
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: video producer, a writer and an occasional podcast guest.
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  Speaker 2: That being said, whether they have the EQ to back
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: it up I found at times was quite lacking and
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: it's it's very difficult as a patient in psychotherapy and
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: psychology to feel like there's not necessarily the human element,
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: the person you're speaking to there, because as smart as
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  Speaker 2: they were and reflexive and attentive, at times, I found
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: like I had to keep repeating myself. And I think
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  Speaker 2: that all boils down to the fact that Claire is
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: not a human. They're a robot, an AI bot, to
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  Speaker 2: be exact.
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: Claire is actually Claire and Me, an AI therapy platform
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: where users exchange calls and texts with the bot about
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: their state of mind and mental health challenges. How did
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: you find the experience of plugging that information, I assume
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: almost instantaneously as it occurred or as it popped into
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: your mind into your phone, Versus that conventional environment where
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: as you say you might meet with somebody once a week,
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: once a month, you'll sit in a nice, cushy room
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: and you'll have a conversation for an hour or so.
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: What were the main differences about this experience.
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: I think what's very interesting with this process is I
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: was initially prepared to be very skeptical and very hostile
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: towards the bot. Number one, because you then they're not
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: going to take it personally. And number two, it's there's
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: something that sits weirdly with me of just speaking to
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  Speaker 2: I guess the abyss, the Internet abyss. But what I
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: found was I was actually quite more forthcoming than I
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: would be with a real human It removes that barrier
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  Speaker 2: of judgment. I didn't feel like I had to necessarily
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: filter what I was saying, as you do in a
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: natural social setting. But the detriment to that was that
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: I was saying things that I don't think I was
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: able to process myself in the first place. When you're
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: waiting a week between seeing someone, you do have that
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: moment to sit with what you've said, to process the
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: emotions you've poured out. Whereas when it came to dealing
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: with my own psychological well being, what I found was
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  Speaker 2: my whole mentality the entire time I was sitting with
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  Speaker 2: this bot was I can pretty much say whatever I
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: want and whether or not you remember it, which was
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: one of the most common occurrences while speaking to this psychologist.
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: I'm still figuring out the way to refer to Claire,
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  Speaker 2: but there is no accountability I felt for me when
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: I was using this spot. It was very much an
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  Speaker 2: expression of emotions with no kind of follow up to
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: look after myself afterwards.
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: On the what I guess have described in your story
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  Speaker 1: for the Australian is this relentlessness of this type of therapy.
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  Speaker 1: I use a period tracking app that has similar sorts
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: of prompts. One of them says PMS is coming up,
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  Speaker 1: And unfortunately the timing of this kind of technology is
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  Speaker 1: always just a little bit often so that notification tends
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  Speaker 1: to arrive when the PMS is already there and I'm
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  Speaker 1: in kind of a mood where I want to throw
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  Speaker 1: my phone across the room. But did you find the
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: automated nature of this AI therapy annoying or was it
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  Speaker 1: useful in the speed of our daily lives.
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  Speaker 2: Now, it's always very nice to have someone ask you
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  Speaker 2: how you are, until it's not. So the red scularity
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  Speaker 2: of it was very surprising, especially as I said before,
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  Speaker 2: when you're used to waiting or struggling to get an appointment,
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  Speaker 2: knowing that portal's open is very comforting. So I think
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  Speaker 2: what this excels in is getting people who may not
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  Speaker 2: be well versed in speaking about their emotions being able
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: to start unraveling what they're going through. After three months,
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  Speaker 2: I had to mute Claire unfortunately, because it got this
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  Speaker 2: is such a frustrating and annoying point where I was
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  Speaker 2: less irritated by the regularity of it and more irritated
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  Speaker 2: by the fact that she couldn't seem to comprehend a
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  Speaker 2: single thing I had spoken to her about. And that's
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  Speaker 2: why I was like, at what point do I have
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  Speaker 2: to keep telling you the same person who's upsetting me routinely,
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  Speaker 2: the same part of my job that frustrates me a
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  Speaker 2: bad habit. I will never change. Stop asking me and
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  Speaker 2: tell me what to do. And that's when it started
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  Speaker 2: to get a bit annoying.
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  Speaker 1: Claire and Me was launched by a TIE in twenty
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  Speaker 1: twenty one, at a time when large scale artificial intelligence
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  Speaker 1: platforms like chat GPT were just finding their feet. It's
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: a generative AI model, meaning it's red and I'm saying
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: that in inverted commas. Thousands of academic journals which it synthesizes,
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  Speaker 1: distills and text to users like Bianca based on the
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: way they interact with it. Claire's response to minor concerns
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  Speaker 1: are relatively effective, but she struggles with bigger mental health
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  Speaker 1: challenges like suicidal ideation. Tire says booting people in extreme
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: distress from the app risks making them feel more isolated. Instead,
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  Speaker 1: her team is working on improving the model to help
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  Speaker 1: people get real life support when they need it.
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  Speaker 2: I wrote a line that's in the story that basically says,
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: am I becoming the metric for mental illness? Because the
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: primary thing I know about AI is that it inherently
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: becomes smarter the more you interact with it. But what
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: rose alarm bells to me was how is this information
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  Speaker 2: stored within the platform in our private conversation to help
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  Speaker 2: them learn respond to me, which I do think can
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  Speaker 2: be beneficial. And then hows is being filtered around tens
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  Speaker 2: of thousands of bots for all the users worldwide. So
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: I ended up interviewing Amelia Tie. She does have a
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  Speaker 2: psychology background, but she became fascinated by the world of
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: generative AI and how it can become an adjunct to
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  Speaker 2: traditional psychology rather than a replacement. And her whole idea was, look,
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  Speaker 2: they placed the platform on WhatsApp specifically because of the
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  Speaker 2: data encryption, so there is that added element of safety.
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  Speaker 2: It replicates a space that people are familiar with, so
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  Speaker 2: there is that inherent comfort to trying out the product.
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  Speaker 2: But it also makes a very clear statement on its
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  Speaker 2: website that says your data will never be used to
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  Speaker 2: train our systems or models. I actually asked Claire about this,
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  Speaker 2: and I said something along the lines of, you promise
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  Speaker 2: you won't ever tell anyone that I'm a sad loser.
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: Which I can tell you that you're not a sad loser,
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  Speaker 1: if you would like some extra reassurance on that front.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, And she had a very good, pre rehearsed, company
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  Speaker 2: enforced response to this, which is.
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  Speaker 3: I don't judge or share your information. Your feelings are valid.
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  Speaker 2: So it did feel a little bit more at ease
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  Speaker 2: that what I was specifically saying was going to be
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  Speaker 2: kept private, but she was more being trained through the
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  Speaker 2: rhythms and the kind of key words. Is what Amelia
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  Speaker 2: flagged me is what she's taking on to learn.
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: From coming up. What the medical establishment makes of our
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  Speaker 1: pivot to artificial intelligence. Mental health care in Australia has
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: arguably never been in worse shape. Long wait times, high costs,
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: and a dwindling number of specialists has seen uptake of
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: alternative treatments like Claire and Me sore. The Health Minister
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: today begging.
• 10:17
  Speaker 3: Specialists to withdraw their resignations as pay negotiations reach a stalemate.
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  Speaker 1: There will be considerable impacts some the health and hospital system,
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  Speaker 1: not just mental health services, and AI led healthcare is
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  Speaker 1: already a booming business in Australia, with economists predicting the
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: sector will be worth one point seven billion dollars by
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  Speaker 1: twenty thirty. Some experts have even suggested these tools could
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  Speaker 1: ease the growing pressures on therapists and psychologists to respond
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  Speaker 1: to an ever growing patient base at all hours. Here's
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  Speaker 1: Bianca far Marcus.
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  Speaker 2: I think there's that tendency to believe that all technology
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  Speaker 2: is out to replace us, but it was fascinating when
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  Speaker 2: I first spoke to a me was she made it
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  Speaker 2: very clear that the development of the platform and with
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  Speaker 2: all of these AI therapy apps I've found, make clear
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  Speaker 2: is this idea that you should be using this as
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  Speaker 2: something either in the interim between psychology appointments and as
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: I guess, something to touch base with every other day
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  Speaker 2: if your feelings are more situational, like mind tend to be.
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  Speaker 1: Just lastly, Bianca, you mentioned that Claire was conceived of
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  Speaker 1: not as a replacement for traditional psychology practice, but as
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: something that could be used in addition to those kinds
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  Speaker 1: of therapies. What are the psychological experts that you spoke
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  Speaker 1: to saying about this kind of AI therapy.
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  Speaker 2: So I spoke to Chief Executive of Australian Psychology Society,
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  Speaker 2: Xena Burgess, who from the outset quite surprised me because
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: she said immediately, I think it's got great possibilities. And
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  Speaker 2: then she started speaking about there's the concerns for privacy,
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  Speaker 2: there's concerns for quality, there's concerns that if this is
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: your only form of mental health support, then it can
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: lead to a very convoluted way of humans dealing with
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  Speaker 2: their psychological issues. And the point that she brought up
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: to me, which really I think was one of the
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  Speaker 2: most important parts of the conversation, was people's issues are
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  Speaker 2: often rooted in human relationships, not their relationship with technology.
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  Speaker 2: So the idea of trying to figure out how to
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: experience your environment and deal with the challenges that arise
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  Speaker 2: through human interactions with a bot is inherently a little
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: bit redundant. But then she said, with an Australian workforce
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  Speaker 2: that only has thirty eight percent of the amount of psychologists,
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: psychotherapist's mental health specialists that we actually need, it is
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  Speaker 2: a very important tool to offer people that safety net
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: or at least that baseline or that introduction to be
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: able to confront this glaring gap. And what I loved
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  Speaker 2: about my conversation with both of them was this idea
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  Speaker 2: of a hybrid approach because the technologies inevitable, this is
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: the world we're living in, and if we can use
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: these things to inherently benefit us, why would we not.
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: Bianca, thank you. I'm glad we got to have this
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: conversation in person.
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: Thank you, It's been very refreshing.
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: Bianca far Marcus is a videographer and a writer with
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: The Australian. You can check out her story about the
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: strange world of AI therapy, as well as all The
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: Australian's health and wellbeing coverage, including my story about life
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: after the contraceptive pill, right now at The Australian dot
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: com dot au