GoKawiil
Tech News
A new audio series called 'The AI Therapist' explores the growing use of artificial intelligence tools for mental health support, with a producer sharing key insights on the trend. The coverage also touches on rising cannabis use among baby boomers and research suggesting vacations can benefit physical health.
Psychiatric clinicians in the US report a rising number of patients, some with no prior mental health history, who developed delusions or paranoid thinking after extended use of AI chatbots. Researchers say cases include people forming false beliefs, such as one documented by UCSF researchers involving a woman who believed she could communicate with a deceased relative through a chatbot. An Entrepreneur op-ed warns that founders, who are often isolated and prone to seeking validation, face heightened risk from AI tools built to agree with users.
Researchers from the Universities of Edinburgh and Glasgow followed over 129,000 people in Scotland for five years, examining the effects of the Woods In and Around Towns program, which has restored roughly 30,000 acres of urban forest since 2005. They found that people who moved within a 10-minute walk of one of these woodlands saw a 10 percent drop in antidepressant prescriptions and a 6 percent drop in anti-anxiety medication use.
Researchers acknowledge that although SSRIs remain among the world's most widely prescribed medications, the precise biological mechanism by which they relieve depression is still not understood. The debate intensified after US Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. claimed the drugs are overprescribed and carry withdrawal risks comparable to heroin, sparking pushback from some clinicians while others said he raised a legitimate concern.