Social Policy

Mental Health in the Digital Age

Insights from an Emotion Scientist

Creative Innovation Studio

Toronto Metropolitan University

2023-04-13

My keynote at the Creative Innovation Studio at TMU explores the complex relationship between technology and mental health.

Centring the ‘paradox of dis/empowerment’, which both connects and alienates users, I discuss the rise of anxiety and depression in the 2020s as a pivotal moment for reassessing the goals and methods of creative technologies. The talk underlines the essential role of machine learning technology and other emergent AI technologies in managing the dis/empowerment dichotomy in mental health, emphasizing that anxiety and depression are deeply rooted in socio-technical and systemic factors.

“Beyond all the data on lost productivity, digital isolation, and mental health treatment gaps, we need to engage with a broader narrative that places rising anxiety and depression within the context of economic, medical, and technological dynamics of modern mental health care and broader social structures and forces.”

Summarizing current research into the role of emotion-AI in mental health care, my 2024 article in The Conversation underscores the need for a cautious and ethically-informed approach to integrating emotion-AI in mental health services. It highlights how these technologies should be developed to complement human empathy and connection rather than promoted as substitutes for it.

The Future of Emotional-AI

Progress and Possibilities

The New Intelligence Podcast

25th Century Magazine

2023-08-24

A recent webcast conversation where we breakdown key potential developments at the intersections of emotions and AI.

We explore topics including: decoding human-machine empathy, the complexities of self-knowledge, and the interplay between large language models and the attention economy. It highlights risks related to the accuracy and biases of emotion-AI, which could lead to potentially harmful outcomes in therapeutic contexts.

The widespread application of AI in therapy, counselling and emotional support holds the potential to revolutionize access to care and alleviate pressures on overworked and overburdened human practitioners. However, the personification of emotion-AI creates a paradox where humanizing AI might lead to the dehumanization of human beings themselves.