Advancement of AI Doctor

AI physicians may flatten humanity into predictable patterns, and thus sacrifice the intimate, personal care expected from traditional human physicians. Oberhaus writes, “The logic of PAI leads to a future where we may all find ourselves patients in algorithmic asylums administered by digital wardens.” “In algorithmic asylum there is no need for bars on the windows or white padded rooms because there is no possibility of escape. Asylum is already everywhere – in your homes and offices, schools and hospitals, courts and barracks. Wherever there is an Internet connection, asylum is waiting.”

Eoin Fullam, a researcher who studies the intersection of technology and mental health, echoes some of the same concerns Chatbot Therapy: A Critical Analysis of AI Mental Health TreatmentA leading academic primer, the book analyzes the assumptions underlying automated treatments offered by AI chatbots and how capitalist incentives can corrupt these types of tools,

Fullam believes that the capitalist mentality behind new technologies “often leads to questionable, illegitimate and illegal business practices in which customers’ interests are secondary to strategies of market dominance.”

This does not mean that therapy-bot makers “will necessarily conduct nefarious activities contrary to the interests of users in the pursuit of market dominance,” Fullam writes.

But he notes that the success of AI therapy depends on the inseparable impulses of making money and healing people. In this logic, exploitation and therapy feed each other: every digital therapy session generates data, and that data fuels a system that turns a profit as it cares for unpaid users. The more effective the therapy seems to be, the more entrenched the cycle becomes, making it harder to distinguish between care and commodification. He writes, “The more benefits users receive from the app in the context of therapeutic or any other mental health intervention, the more likely they are to undergo exploitation.”

This sense of the economic and psychological ouroboros – the snake that eats its own tail – serves as a central metaphor. psycheThe first novel by Fred Lunzer, an author with a research background in AI.

It is described as a “boy meets girl AI psychiatrist”. psyche Adrian, a young Londoner who ghost-writes rap songs, is in a romance with Maqui, a business professional adept at spotting lucrative technologies in the beta stage.

Celadon Books, 2025

The title refers to a brilliant professional AI therapist named Psyche, uploaded to smart glasses, which Adrian uses to interrogate his myriad concerns. “When I signed up for Psyche, we set up our dashboard, a wide black panel like an airplane cockpit that showed my daily ‘vitals’,” explains Adrian. “Psyche can analyze the way you walk, the way you make eye contact, what you talk about, the things you wear, how often you pee, poop, laugh, cry, kiss, lie, groan and cough.”