UberTherapy
I’m now up to my elbows in the AI debates as I spend this summer writing my book UberTherapy: The new business of mental health to be published by Bristol University Press in 2024.
Part of the pain of writing about digital therapy is holding onto the panic that I’ll miss something as we spin through stories of AI heroes and villains. The Great Men of Tech wielding their heroic swords of magic solutions and the soothsayers of the forthcoming AI apocalypse.
And Nick Clegg.
Last week we heard Sir Nick who is now the President of Global Affairs at Meta on BBCRadio 4 talking about transparency of stress-testing their algorithms. Open source, liberal values, tech democracy. Professor Dame Wendy Hall, co-Chair of the Government’s AI Review calls this the equivalent to “giving people a template to build a nuclear bomb”.
Nick says this is hyperbole, having learned to dodge all manner of critical thought with an inbuilt confidence and charm of someone who exists in a parallel political universe. Probably my sweetest political act was to call Nick Clegg lonely on BBCRadio5Live - you can watch the video of how that went, with unconscious subtitles here. Just felt good you know.
But in a way Nick is right that the real impact of AI is not in this moment of hyperbolic drama but it is determined by the details.
And here’s where I need your help dear reader.
If you are or have worked for an online therapy platform I would like to interview you to help me understand the architecture of digital therapy platforms. What and how you work, how you relate to the company and what your experiences are. Interviews will be entirely confidential, held directly with me by phone or online. Nothing you say will be attributed or passed on to other people. Your name and contact details will not be kept on any data base or passed on to others. Your experience will be used simply to help me paint an accurate picture in my book.
If you can help please email me Elizabeth Cotton on info@survivingwork.org which is an email account accessed solely by me.
The Digital Therapy Survey will run over the next four months to understand experiences of using digital therapy tools from the perspectives of therapists and consumers or users. This survey aims to capture the experience of using three main categories of digital therapy tools - tele/video therapy, mental health/wellbeing apps and Chatbots and online therapy platforms. We are seeking responses both from the UK and USA and from therapists and users so that we can understand different perspectives on the use of digital therapeutic tools.
Follow the survey
@digitaltherapy@mastadon.social