Mental health, education, and AI
What if AI can be incorporated into mental health care? Bizzare? Well, hear me out. Mental illness is treated through two approaches: psychotherapy or medication. Now, we still lack a lot of knowledge behind what exactly happens when someone has a mental illness resulting in doctors often not knowing which approach to take. The result? Many patients end up trying both and the real problem lies behind patients taking these medications because it often comes with harsh side effects. For example, sertraline is one of more popular anti-depressant but it comes with side effects such as nausea, diarrhea, constipation, heartburn, tiredness, nervousness,…the list goes on. Just think about it. Some of these symptoms are ridiculous and some of them even contradict each other (diarrhea and constipation). No one should ever be taking these medications unless it’s absolutely necessary. So how do we increase our accuracy of determining who needs a prescription and who doesn’t? AI.
If AI is so good at understanding the pattern behind big data, why not understand the pattern behind our mental health behavior? Although human intuition is hard to understand, our behaviors definitely show a distinct pattern. For example, a person is more likely to consume sweet food if they feel depressed. This is a psychological action made by your brain because sweet treats such as chocolate can help restore the level of dopamine in your body. Using this data of behavior, AI can assist doctors to distinguish mental illness that simply requires behavioral therapy vs prescription. For those who would benefit more from therapy than medication, they would not only understand the behaviors that cause their mental illness but also avoid the cost of having to pay a hefty price for the medication.
The biggest challenge for this AI is the right to privacy. Monitoring a person’s behaviors can reveal a lot about that person and if this data is ever breached, then it can easily be taken advantage of. It will be as if looking at someone and understanding what they have done the past one week from second to second. For this reason, the data obtained through this AI must solely be used for the medical purposes. Perhaps if data was secured with technology such as blockchain, the public might feel safer using this AI.
Another sector that can hugely benefit from AI is the education sector. The method we use to provide education has been pretty stagnant. It involves a teacher providing an information along with powerpoint and students taking in the information the best way possible. However, the flaw of this system is that every student learns differently and a unified model of teaching cannot fit them all. As a result, students often adjust based on the teacher’s preferred method of teaching, not the other way around.
However, what if AI can analyze the student’s learning behavior and provide a lesson that is best suited for them. Perhaps, it can even understand when a student is stuck on a concept and can provide a personal explanation that makes the most sense to the student. This personalized education will not only benefit the student but the future of our society which will be lead by these students.
What would be the biggest hurdle it will have get over? The education sector itself. The U.S. education was modeled after the Prussian education system and has barely made any improvements because they tend to stick to things that work and are often reluctant to new ideas. As a result, the education sector tends to stay behind when it comes to implementing new technologies and ideas. For this same reason, introducing AI as a new role of educator will require some time before it can be accepted in the field. Teachers can also resist this idea for a fear their role might be replaced by a machine.
Mental health and education might be an odd field to apply the technology of AI and perhaps there might be a bit of resistance to the idea. However, it is important to understand that if these fields of society can improve with the help of AI, then it will provide a benefit not just for its own but for the society as a whole. That’s why it is essential for us to address the potential problem ahead of its time and maybe through this process, we can overcome the challenges with ease.
