It's called Woebot, and it's a Facebook chatbot developed by researchers at Stanford University that offers interactive cognitive behavioral therapy y, Andrew Ng, a leading figure who previously led efforts to develop and apply the latest AI technologies at Google and Baidu, is now backing the project by joining the board of directors of the company that offers these services.
Says Ng. "If we can take a bit of the insight and empathy (of a real therapist) and deliver that at scale in a chatbot, we could help millions of people."
“Younger people are the worst served by our current health systems”, says Alison Darcy , a clinical research psychologist who came up with the idea for Woebot while teaching at Stanford in July 2016, adding that this feature "It's also very stigmatized and expensive."
Darcy, who met Ng at Stanford, says that work there applying techniques like deep learning to conversational agents inspired her to think that therapy could be delivered by a robot. She says it's possible to automate cognitive behavioral therapy because it follows a series of steps to identify and address toxic ways of thinking. And recent advances in natural language processing have helped make chatbots more useful within limited domains.
Depression is certainly a big problem.
It is now the leading disability in the US, with 50 percent of American college students reporting suffering from anxiety or depression.
Darcy and her colleagues tested several different prototypes on university volunteers, and found the chatbot approach to be particularly effective. In a study published this year in a peer-reviewed medical journal, it was found that Woebot reduces symptoms of depression in students over the course of two weeks.
A chatbot may seem like a crude way of delivering therapy, but Woebot runs smoothly thanks to a smart interface and some pretty impressive natural language technology. The software notifies you in advance that no one will see the responses, but also offers ways to contact someone if the situation is serious.
Conversations with Woebot are directed, but the system can understand a wide variety of responses. He writes to you every day and guides you through the stages of therapy. For example, when you tell Woebot that you're stressed out at work, the bot offers ways to reframe the feelings so that you focus on them in a more positive light.
The first chatbot, Eliza, developed at MIT in 1966 by Joseph Weizenbaum, was designed to imitate a "Rogerian psychologist". Eliza used some clever tricks to create the illusion of intelligent conversation, for example repeating answers back to a person or offering open-ended questions like "In what way?" and "Can you think of a specific example?" Weizenbaum was surprised to find that people seemed to believe they were talking to a real therapist, with some offering very personal details..
Alison Darcy also says that both Eliza and Woebot are effective because a conversation is a natural way to communicate distress and receive emotional support. He adds that people seem happy to find that it actually works, and seem to enjoy talking to Woebot as if he were a real therapist. "People talk about their problems for a reason", says , “therapy is conversational”.
Ng says he expects the AI to provide further advances in the language in the coming years, but it will still be relatively immature. He mentions that a better way to parse the meaning of language will help make the tool more effective. Other mental health experts also appear to be positive about the possibility of applying such technology to treatment.
Michael Thase, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania and an expert in cognitive behavioral therapy, says that "There is significant evidence that people with mild levels of depression may benefit from various types of web-based or online therapy approaches." Although he adds that studies have shown that such technology works best with the help of a real person. "Spending some time with a real therapist is helpful"He says.
Source: MIT Technology Review
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