When Mental Healthcare Becomes Platform-Dependent

Future Strategy Group CEO Amy Webb says the cost of unloading our emotional burdens on AI will become the biggest personal expense so that people can "feel normal"

Photo by Possessed Photography on Unsplash

A few days ago, Future Strategy Group (FSG) CEO Amy Webb took the stage at SXSW to hold a moment of silence for technology “trend reports.” Innovation is converging across multiple industries and systems, the respected futurist argued, which will “redistribute power and value” and “rewrite who wins” and ultimately “create new realities.” Among the many “convergences” she identified was how we are increasing outsourcing emotional support to artificial intelligence (AI) across human relationships. Looking for love? Look no further than ChatGPT. Need a therapist? Ditto. Friends, validation, even spiritual direction can be found through Large Language Models (LLMs).

All of this is pretty well documented, but Webb went further in her talk, arguing that emotional AI (or emotion AI) is becoming embedded in daily life and will soon become pervasive infrastructure. She said the biggest personal expense (and revenue sources for corporations) may become the subscription “that you pay to feel normal.” It’s pretty easy to see where this leads: With private companies owning vast emotional support infrastructure, they will control prices and access.

But Webb said it’s even scarier: Subscribers will be allowing their thoughts to be mined by corporations, allowing them to predict what people feel before they make decisions, from talking to bosses to voting in elections. “And when the platform changes or it crashes or it gets acquired when your AI boyfriend dumps or cheats on you at 3 am, who is going to be there to comfort you?” She said. The emotional and financial dependency that results could generate widespread helplessness.

This is already happening. Digital therapy platform Headspace recently introduced an “empathetic AI companion” built by clinical psychologists as well as AI-driven assessments and personalized care plans. Grow Therapy, which recently raised $150 million, launched AI-powered patient journaling and ambient listening last year. “More than 2 million people have used Grow over the past year,” Fierce Healthcare reported.

It’s not far fetched to imagine these companies expanding into “new business verticals” to cater to distraught, emotionally affected users with “upgrades”, “premium features” or “add ons” that deepen dependency on their digital platforms. “The most valuable company in the world in 2031 doesn’t make anything,” Webb said. “It owns infrastructure for how you feel before you think.”

The resulting commodification of the self is deeply unsettling, with risks to privacy, personal agency and much more. Imagine, for instance, if corporations got to decide who gets access to their platforms and services. It gives a different meaning to being “de-platformed.” It could be literally heartbreaking.

What Else is Happening In Mental Health

Even while we’re increasingly outsourcing emotional support to robots, a new study recently published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology found that “texting daily with a random human peer may be more effective in alleviating loneliness than texting with a highly supportive chatbot.”

The link between the climate crisis and mental health continues to be one of deep concern. A new study published in The Lancet concludes that self-reported anxiety and depression would increase by 5-13% based on 1–6°C contiguous US warming, which of course would burden the health system.

A few days ago, The Associated Press reported that Dr. Tracy Beth Hogg, the FDA’s top drug regulator, was seeking to hire a friend and “professional ally” to help research slapping new warnings on antidepressant use during pregnancy . The friend in question is Dr. Adam Urato, described as a “maternal-fetal medicine specialist” who has petitioned the FDA to add a boxed warning claiming that SSRIs can cause complications during pregnancy, but researchers argue that’s based on scant evidence (the petition is no longer available online). Obviously hiring a friend and professional ally who already wants to slap black boxes on antidepressants is a conflict of interest. Because of the flurry of headlines, this hasn’t attracted enough attention. Let’s hope the reporter find outs more.

Feeling anxious? You’re not alone. Sean Illig talks with philosopher Samir Chopra, author of Anxiety: A Philosophical Guide, on the Gray Area podcast. “Once we understand anxiety’s relationship with our consciousness and with our conditions of existence, we can get to a state… that it can teach us how to not be anxious about being anxious,” Chopra says.