More miscellaneous details

Tag: health

  • The first trial of generative AI therapy shows it might help with depression – MIT Technology Review

    Jean-Christophe Bélisle-Pipon, an assistant professor of health ethics at Simon Fraser University who has written about AI therapy bots but was not involved in the research, says the results are impressive but notes that just like any other clinical trial, this one doesn’t necessarily represent how the treatment would act in the real world. “We remain far from a ‘greenlight’ for widespread clinical deployment,” he wrote in an email.

    One issue is the supervision that wider deployment might require. During the beginning of the trial, Jacobson says, he personally oversaw all the messages coming in from participants (who consented to the arrangement) to watch out for problematic responses from the bot. If therapy bots needed this oversight, they wouldn’t be able to reach as many people.

    I asked Jacobson if he thinks the results validate the burgeoning industry of AI therapy sites. “Quite the opposite,” he says, cautioning that most don’t appear to train their models on evidence-based practices like cognitive behavioral therapy, and they likely don’t employ a team of trained researchers to monitor interactions. “I have a lot of concerns about the industry and how fast we’re moving without really kind of evaluating this,” he adds.

    , , ,

  • Well, that’s not good – Futurism

    In a new joint study, researchers with OpenAI and the MIT Media Lab found that this small subset of ChatGPT users engaged in more “problematic use,” defined in the paper as “indicators of addiction… including preoccupation, withdrawal symptoms, loss of control, and mood modification.” … Though the vast majority of people surveyed didn’t engage emotionally with ChatGPT, those who used the chatbot for longer periods of time seemed to start considering it to be a “friend.” The survey participants who chatted with ChatGPT the longest tended to be lonelier and get more stressed out over subtle changes in the model’s behavior, too.

    , , , ,

  • Are noise-cancelling headphones to blame for young people’s hearing problems? – BBC News

    After a hearing test came back normal, Sophie met a private audiologist for further testing. She was eventually diagnosed with auditory processing disorder, external (APD), a neurological condition where the brain finds it difficult to understand sounds and spoken words. Her audiologist and others in England are now calling for more research into whether the condition is linked to overuse of noise-cancelling headphones. […]

    Claire Benton, vice-president of the British Academy of Audiology, suggests that by blocking everyday sounds such as cars beeping, there is a possibility the brain can “forget” to filter out the noise. “You have almost created this false environment by wearing those headphones of only listening to what you want to listen to. You are not having to work at it,” she said. “Those more complex, high-level listening skills in your brain only really finish developing towards your late teens. So, if you have only been wearing noise-cancelling headphones and been in this false world for your late teens then you are slightly delaying your ability to process speech and noise,” Benton suggests.

    ,

  • Human therapists prepare for battle against A.I. pretenders – The New York Times

    Dr. Evans said he was alarmed at the responses offered by the chatbots. The bots, he said, failed to challenge users’ beliefs even when they became dangerous; on the contrary, they encouraged them. If given by a human therapist, he added, those answers could have resulted in the loss of a license to practice, or civil or criminal liability. […]

    Early therapy chatbots, such as Woebot and Wysa, were trained to interact based on rules and scripts developed by mental health professionals, often walking users through the structured tasks of cognitive behavioral therapy, or C.B.T. Then came generative A.I., the technology used by apps like ChatGPT, Replika and Character.AI. These chatbots are different because their outputs are unpredictable; they are designed to learn from the user, and to build strong emotional bonds in the process, often by mirroring and amplifying the interlocutor’s beliefs.

    , , , ,

  • Constantly scrolling on your phone? Why we can’t stand feeling bored – The Guardian

    People hate feeling bored. We hate it so much that we spend hours mindlessly scrolling through our phones. Many of us would rather experience physical discomfort than sit quietly with our own thoughts, as a 2014 University of Virginia study found. Nearly half of participants sitting alone in a room for 15 minutes, with no stimulation other than a button that would administer a mild electric shock, pressed the button.

    , ,

  • Parkrun veteran, 82, runs final race in Leeds – BBC News

    Hilary Wharam, 82, has more than 200 marathons and 171 Parkruns to her name since she took up the sport aged 55. However, as Ms Wharam is moving to Scotland to live with her daughter, Saturday was her last time running at Woodhouse Moor, which she has finished 112 times. Woodhouse Moor Parkrun director Anne Akers described Hilary as “a running machine”, adding: “We are going to miss her so much.” Ms Wharam was given a standing ovation by volunteers and fellow members of her running club, Horsforth Harriers, as she crossed the finish line on Saturday.

    , ,

  • Being a person with deadly, incurable cancer who is nonetheless still alive – Mishell Baker: Bluesky

    Being a person with deadly, incurable cancer who is nonetheless still alive for an indefinite timeframe gives me an interesting metaphor that helps me deal with things like large-scale corruption in government or commerce. … You have opportunity after opportunity to create something lovely for yourself or others. Every moment you choose to sit and think about horrors beyond your control, every time you make the choice to look for more and more details about just HOW bad… you are turning away from those opportunities.

    , , , ,

  • Daniel Barenboim reveals he has Parkinson’s Disease – Classical Music

    Barenboim has stated that he intends to continue working as much as his health allows. His top priority remains securing the future of the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, which he co-founded in 1999 to bring together young musicians from Israel and Arab nations. Describing the mission of the orchestra, which has been a BBC Proms regular since 2003, Barenboim has observed, ‘It has very flatteringly been described as a project for peace. It isn’t. It’s not going to bring peace, whether you play well or not so well.

    , , , ,

  • Cozy video games can quell stress and anxiety – Reuters

    Egami’s study found that owning a game console and increased gameplay reduced psychological distress and improved life satisfaction among participants. The study found that spending just one extra hour each day playing video games was associated with an increase in mental health and life satisfaction.

    Other studies also point to a shift in perceptions of gaming. “As more research has emerged related to video games, we’re beginning to recognize that they can actually offer a lot of benefits,” said Michael Wong, an assistant professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neurosciences at McMaster University and former professor at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse

    , ,

  • Singapore is turning to AI to care for its rapidly aging population – Rest of World

    Studies show that AI companions like Dexie can be just as effective in reducing loneliness as interacting with another person. For Singapore, where an aging population is rapidly becoming the majority and elders are getting lonelier, authorities see the potential of AI tools to assist in preventive illness care, a key emphasis of the city-state’s health care system. […]

    In 2024, the government committed over 1 billion Singapore dollars ($730 million) to boost AI capabilities over the next five years. Among the many eldercare AI projects in the pipeline is a generative AI application called MemoryLane for the elderly to document their life stories. The project is being piloted at several St Luke’s ElderCare Active Ageing Centres. Khoo Teck Puat, a local hospital, has developed a generative AI–based tool to create “visual pillboxes” to remind seniors of their pill regimens, while RoboCoach Xian, a robot trainer, is helping senior citizens stay healthy through physical exercise routines.

    , , , ,

  • One for all and all for none – Notes, links, etc

    You can look for available GP appointments using the NHS app. Pretty cool. Unless your local surgery has opted to use a different system. If that’s the case, you need to make sure you don’t click the ‘Check for available GP appointments’ button in the app because it will just say ‘No appointments available’. And when you phone the surgery, you’ll get a recorded message which says to use the app. So you’ll try again of course and get the same result: No appointments available. Perhaps you’ll feel bad for being a burden – because it’s flu season and the surgery must be flat out. Perhaps you’ll wait another day and when you try again you’ll find there are still no appointments available.

    , , ,

  • Gamer role introduced in children’s hospital – BBC News

    A Scottish children’s hospital charity has introduced a gamer in residence for young patients in Glasgow. The new job involves visiting children to play video games with them, preventing boredom and providing some light relief. Steven Mair, who was appointed by the Glasgow Children’s Hospital Charity, says gaming has already provided huge benefits to the patients. He said that playing Mario Kart has improved the mobility of a patient’s hand and that it was also a useful tool in distracting the children during medical procedures. “One of my first sessions here at the hospital was a patient who was on a plasma exchange and that can be quite intrusive”, he added. “When I went in to play with that patient, it kept him distracted throughout the whole procedure.” Josephine, the mum of eight-year-old Laura Jayne, said her daughter had been in hospital for six months. She said: “It’s been really good just to pass the time. Sometimes it helps her to interact with the gamers. She really gets a lot out of it.”

    , , , ,

Tags

AI Amazon Apple archives art book reviews books chatbots children China classical commerce computing copyright culture data design Donald Trump economics education Elon Musk environment ethics fakes future gadgets galleries Google health history history of technology humour illustration internet jobs journalism Leeds LLM mental health metaverse mobile phones movies music NASA painting photography politics productivity psychology robots satire schools science sculpture search Second Life social media society software space standards technology television time truth video video games VR watches writing

Archives