AI-powered therapy chatbots are becoming increasingly popular, particularly among young adults, despite significant concerns about safety, efficacy, and privacy protections that far exceed the regulatory guardrails governing these products.
A KFF poll found about 3 in 10 respondents ages 18 to 29 turned to AI chatbots for mental or emotional health advice in the past year. Uninsured adults were about twice as likely as insured adults to report using AI tools. Nearly 60% of adult respondents who used a chatbot for mental health did not follow up with a human professional. Engineers from OpenAI told Tom Insel, former head of the National Institute of Mental Health, that about 5% to 10% of the company’s then-roughly 800 million-strong user base rely on ChatGPT for mental health support.
A burgeoning industry of about 45 AI therapy apps identified in Apple’s App Store offers unrealistically attractive avatars serving as sounding boards. Many charge steep prices—one listed an annual plan for $690—though they remain cheaper than human therapy. On the App Store, “therapy” is often used as a marketing term with small print noting the apps cannot diagnose or treat disease. Outside researchers and company representatives have told the FDA and Congress there is little evidence supporting the efficacy of these products.
Privacy and Data Risks
Privacy standards are opaque. Several apps listed on the App Store are described as not tracking personally identifiable data or sharing it with advertisers, but on their company websites, privacy policies contained contrary descriptions. Researchers warned that sharing psychiatric data with social media firms means patients could be profiled and targeted by dodgy treatment firms or charged different prices for goods based on their health.
Few legislative or regulatory guardrails exist around how developers describe their products or whether they are safe or effective. Federal patient privacy protections under HIPAA do not apply to most apps.
This article is an AI-assisted summary. All facts and figures are drawn from the original report: https://kffhealthnews.org/news/article/ai-chatbots-therapy-big-risks-few-regulations/