Introduction

Artificial Intelligence has been made to improve the functionality of life, even more so for those with busy lives. Although society has yet to improve on machines that can think on its own, it is said that in the next forty to forty-five years, it is predicted that artificial intelligence will be able to think and act on its own. With the innovation of what is as close to an artificial intelligence life form as it can get, such as Siri, more people are relying on the knowledge of machines rather than other people. So when scientists are able to create an artificial intelligent psychologist called ELLIE, the psychiatric community is in awe.

Current Use and Benefits

ELLIE is a artificial virtual psychiatrist created by a team of researchers at the Institute of Creative Technologies. She behaves almost identical to a human psychiatrist, she will ask the same questions, pose like one, and she does not judge. While this new program is not widely used as of yet, ELLIE mostly sees military personnel that have returned from deployment who could potentially be prone to Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and are at risk to themselves and others if the signs are not caught beforehand. She is able to detect even the slightest bit of facial and body movement, your words and even the tone. These help her in analyzing the information you have given her. She studies movement that can indicate post traumatic stress disorder. These can be detected by looking at the patient's movements. For example, a patient with post traumatic stress disorder will do self-adaptor gestures such as touching their hands or head. ELLIE is able to recognize these actions to gather Intel on the patient's mental health condition. Once ELLIE suspects that the patient may be suffering from PTSD, she will inform them confidentially that they may be at risk and she will suggest on ways to get treatment (The Computer).

Security Aspects

Any security concerns would be loss of information as a result of hacking and would lead to the patient's private information being leaked. It is debatable whether or not it is much safer keeping information physically or digitally, however the risk of loss of information may be higher with technology. Within the psychiatric community, the privacy of the patient is top priority. A human psychologist and therapist can store their patient's information within paper files and inside their mind, technology is always at the risk of being breached. This ultimately can lead to a loss of privacy.

Legal, Ethical and Social Implications

Two words--Empathy gap. Sherry Turkle, an expert in the field of science and technology, describes empathy gap as the ability to put yourself in someone else’s shoes and being able to visualize what they are going through (Turkle). While machines are smart enough to pick up on things that the human eye can miss, there seems to be a huge gap emotionally. Machines can pick up on a human's physical abnormalities, changes, and patterns. They can collect information through a shrink but they don't know why and how it is important to a human. This is something only another human can understand. It is significantly easier to obtain information by using a robot to do the talking. People are able to open up more knowing that they would not be judged, but this method can cause the robot to overlook something very vital. Human understanding and interaction. That is the key complications of having a robot therapist. There is yet to be legal controversy surrounding this new invention, however it is assumed to be legal as medical research professionals use ELLIE to treat military personnel for the time being (The Computer).

Future Use

The purpose of ELLIE is for information gathering. It's been proven that a patient will refuse to disclose personal information to another person. However, a robot might produce a different outcome. In the article, "Software agents and robots in mental therapy," Nomura Tatsuya states that humans willingly speak to robots as if they were human as well. Whether this is done unconsciously or subconsciously, For example, is a virtual robot speaks to a person in a polite manner, the person will respond back politely as well (Nomura 2009). Johnathan Gratch, a researcher at the Institute for Creative Technologies in Los Angeles decided to test this idea. He gathered 239 participants to speak in front of ELLIE; Half of the participants were told that they would be interacting with an artificial intelligent human and the other half were told, falsely, that ELLIE was a puppet that was controlled by someone behind the scenes. After the interview, researchers gave the participants questionnaires. Those who thought ELLIE was a puppet reported that they had greater fear disclosing private information compared to those who knew ELLIE was a virtual human. ELLIE is able to remedy that. She will be able to gather information that a person is unwilling to disclose to their own therapist. By doing this, the therapist is able to diagnose and prescribe their patient as accurately as possible (The Computer). ELLIE will not be used as a substitute therapist, Louis-Phillippe Morency says, ELLIE’s co-creator. She is meant to be a decision support tool that gathers information for the human clinician. The human clinician will still be tasked with diagnosing and treating the patient (Robinson 2015).

Conclusion

With the new wave of technology, from artificial intelligent robots to virtual reality. Society has invented a variety of up and coming technology to better fit the lifestyle of people. While ELLIE is still being used on a smaller scale, she still makes quite an impact on the psychiatric community. Her technology is advanced enough to detect changes in body posture, voice recognition, and eye movements. She's even able to gather information that normal psychiatrists cannot. There is still a wide range of things ELLIE cannot do, but with researchers always finding ways to exceed limitations, there is no telling what ELLIE will be able to do.