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https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1122998
INTRO: Psychotherapy has always been a deeply human endeavor: a patient talking, a therapist listening and responding, and healing happening through words. But with the rapid rise of conversational artificial intelligence, particularly large language models (LLMs), that paradigm is shifting fast.
A team of University of Utah researchers is tackling this change, but not by asking, “Will robots replace therapists?” Rather, they explore more practical questions: What are we automating and how much?
“The history of new technology like this is almost always about collaboration, and it's about how it supports the human expert in doing the work they can do,” said Zac Imel, a professor of educational psychology and lead author of a new study titled “A Framework for Automation in Psychotherapy.” “It might be useful to think about frameworks for understanding the different types of work that could be done through automation, and that's what this paper is.”
The study is the result of a cross-campus collaboration among researchers from the U’s College of Engineering, School of Medicine and College of Education.
Simply put, automation is when machines perform tasks humans have previously done. In therapy, that could range from a chatbot delivering prewritten coping tips to AI systems that take and organize notes, analyze therapy sessions and provide feedback to clinicians, or even talk directly to patients... (MORE - details, no ads)
INTRO: Psychotherapy has always been a deeply human endeavor: a patient talking, a therapist listening and responding, and healing happening through words. But with the rapid rise of conversational artificial intelligence, particularly large language models (LLMs), that paradigm is shifting fast.
A team of University of Utah researchers is tackling this change, but not by asking, “Will robots replace therapists?” Rather, they explore more practical questions: What are we automating and how much?
“The history of new technology like this is almost always about collaboration, and it's about how it supports the human expert in doing the work they can do,” said Zac Imel, a professor of educational psychology and lead author of a new study titled “A Framework for Automation in Psychotherapy.” “It might be useful to think about frameworks for understanding the different types of work that could be done through automation, and that's what this paper is.”
The study is the result of a cross-campus collaboration among researchers from the U’s College of Engineering, School of Medicine and College of Education.
Simply put, automation is when machines perform tasks humans have previously done. In therapy, that could range from a chatbot delivering prewritten coping tips to AI systems that take and organize notes, analyze therapy sessions and provide feedback to clinicians, or even talk directly to patients... (MORE - details, no ads)