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Comment by atrone | Hacker News Reader

Hey, thanks for the feedback.

I'm interested in how I can use this moving forward because I have personally found my app to be helpful for getting over a breakup.

My prompt is designed for Mindy to act as the "best of both worlds" between a real therapist and robot therapist, which means it will refer you to real therapy if it deems your problem too serious for a robot.

I'm not sure anymore however. I don't store any data for longer than the session is active, but I know OpenAI does. Also: OpenAI knows I am using their API for this purpose.

I'm really at a loss. I see the value and the harm. I'm going to have to do more thinking on this.

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I've also used ChatGPT for "self therapy" and found out that it works reasonably well, though I would not recommend it for serious medical or psychiatric issues. I always take the feedback with a grain of salt, however, and usually when you ask such questions you are given the caveat to seek professional help.

If anything, I have positive faith in that ChatGPT or GPTn will be a great tool for therapy in the future.

As for the guy who killed himself, as sad as it is, I seriously doubt that ChatGPT made anything worse. With that said, the incident of course needs closer investigation to find out what advice the guy actually got.

A chat AI would have specific and professionally prepared training to handle people in distress, that's why I think it is in fact better that they talk to the AI rather than some untrained friend or relative.

This is of course just one aspect in how the above application is problematic, however.

I’m sorry I came down so hard. I was thinking about it, and man - I am just so scared for people right now.

But I see your love, and I want to help!!

I have experience in PII and HIPPA and can see if we can address some of this stuff.

I think a conclusive terms of service, less specific questions, and storing it entirely in the browser if possible, will be a solid start .

My passion is from concern, not anger. I hope that comes across

Cool! Down to work on this. Let me know where to reach out. Also I've contacted my lawyer about this and it's a very grey area. We'll see where that goes.

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