Mind Mentor: an AI Robot Shrink
Dutch Programmers Produced an Eliza Clone for Budget Therapy
Mar 27, 2008
If you tire of paying $75 an hour or more on therapy bills, one company may have a unique solution that will only cost eight dollars an hour. Readers may be wondering what this marvel is, but it is not a budget therapist, but rather a software program developed by two Dutch psychologists.
Mind Mentor is an artifical intelligence program that lets patients pay a fee of $8 U.S. an hour to help them sort out their problems. Mind Mentor may not be as nice as a real therapist, but it is certainly cheaper. The creators boast a high success rate with the program, but it is doubtful this virtual shrink cures anything.
The Origins of the Mind Mentor Program
Mind Mentor is based on an early experimental artificial intelligence program called Eliza. The creator of Eliza, Joseph Weisenbaum passed away early in 2008 and was surprised to find that real-world therapists thought that Eliza might be a useful tool. Anyone who has paid for psychotherapy will find that having an artificial intelligence program that can mimic human empathy and serve as a therapist is a far more rewarding experience than talking to a live person, if a potential patient only considers the financial concerns.
Adrienne So, a Wired columnist who reviewed the Mind Mentor software, found that while she came away with useful suggestions from the Mind Mentor softwared, it was not a useful psychotherapy tool. It is hard to know if Joseph Weizenbaum, who was an advocate for responsible social use of AI after his Eliza program gained the attention of human therapists, would approve of an offshoot of his Eliza program being used this way, as he was an advocate for the responsible use of artificial intelligence.
Mind Mentor's Game or Psychotherapy Tool?
As a psychotherapy tool, Mind Mentor fails to measure up to the standards of care that a human therapist would. The user should not use Mind Mentor as a psychotherapy tool, but the software does provide something that at least sounds somewhat sympathetic if you need someone to talk to.
The language capabilities of Mind Mentor are there though, and the users of the software can save money by finding one of the many Eliza clones available on the web. Mind Mentor is an interesting idea, but it costs too much money and has too much potential for abuse. People who need therapy should tak to a real psychiatrist before using an interesting Turing simulation.
Sources
“Robot Shrink Does Psychotherapy on the Cheap.” Adrienne So. Wired Magazine.March 24, 2008.
“Professoer Joseph Weizenbaum: Creator of the Eliza Program.” The Independent.London, England. March 18, 2008.
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