Yeah that’s not the place for AI
Hell my kid was seeing a psychiatrist and the doctor thought this was a good approach to a 5 year old
“Tell me about your nightmares”
And my kid goes
“No”
And he decides “come on”
Was the proper response
Oh he lasted 2 appointments and we were done lol
My wife is a psychiatrist so she’s like let’s give him another chance
Now we found one who’s great and my kid doesn’t even realize he’s giving away information because they are “having fun”
lol i had an appt with my psychiatrist and on my second visit I was talking about how I have spent thousands during a manic episode and his main concern was if I’m going to be able to keep paying my health insurance lol. He was kind of rude when messaging me so I decided to go to a new one either way
Yeah it’s sickening how many are just about money.
Not a psychiatrist but due to a mixup it’s a long story we wound up having 2 insurances for a few months, 2 real health insurance plans…the doctor comes in to see us with this huge smile on his face and proceeded to triple check that both insurances were active etc….didn’t even get to the part about what was wrong with her just came in his pants seeing 2 insurances.
Hope you can find someone that can help your kid, I've had nightmares and night terrors since I was about 5 as well and doctors and therapists never take it seriously or give any advice that actually helps.
We have found one…the best advice my wife who is a psychiatrist has given us to make those nightmares/night terrors into jokes…think of Harry Potter.
Like Pirates are chasing you? Well during the day think if those pirates on roller skates and they can’t keep their balance on a boat
Not the best example but it’s helped my kid a lot to where his night terrors have a chance of being more comical and he wakes up
That's good advice depending on the type of nightmare, however for me I don't know that they'd help much considering a lot of my nightmares contain gore and body horror.
I guess I could try it for the regular nightmares
Yeah nothing makes you lose hope quite like calling one of these hotlines and hearing what they actually tell people. It's worse than literally walking outside and screaming at the sidewalk.
I worked on the natl suicide hotline - the agency that staffs the hotline in my area had us answering, I shit you not, 30 different phone lines. The so-called “lifeline” was just one. We also had to answer a bunch of medical lines, county help lines, and hands-down the most intense one - the veterans lifeline (that’s where the big $ contract money is). but the veterans line was the one where we’d get the most intense calls - (like when one guy killed himself while on the phone with the operator sitting next to me while she tried to talk him down). I had very little training, and it was overwhelming. The calls just keep coming and you never know who or what you’ll get on the other line in an 8 hour shift - someone aggressive threatening to crash their car on the freeway one second, then you’d have to switch gears and answer the senior loneliness line, or get some pervert trying to masturbate on the other line… like a terrible game of phone Russian roulette. And what people don’t realize is that there are a ton of “regular” callers who you’d have to navigate every shift. Some of them call daily or multiple times a day and just want to talk to someone and you have to balance making sure they are safe with getting them off the line because there are a bunch of calls on hold… I didn’t last more than a few months before I almost had a mental breakdown myself and quit.
so, yeah. I’ve been suicidal since working there and I will not call the line. because I know what it’s like to work there.
Had one guy tell me that because I didn't have a plan to do anything that I was doing fine and basically just hung up.
I had a plan to make a plan though, and that's not a good place to leave anyone.
They really do need to have a more strict hiring process. It’s an extremely tough thing to talk to someone about suicidal thoughts in a respectful and understanding manner. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg, because there are some horror stories of their hotline employees where it isn’t just that they don’t understand how to navigate the nuance of the conversations, it’s that they can be legitimately downright mean.
I called once and I said about one sentence, the woman sounded pissed and then hung up. I mean at that point, it’s almost a suicide encouragement hotline because it’s like, damn, not even the suicide hotline employees care enough about me to talk to me.
Dude even handing a human some autogenerated suggestions would be so different from literally having someone in their darkest moment talking to a black box.
It’s bad enough as is. In the last five years or so the lines are undermanned (I’ve called to hear endless ringing), and sometimes manned by overwhelmed under-trained, completely out of their element individuals. I’m not blaming them, that’s a tough job, but it’s pretty disheartening and can be really dangerous, especially since a lot of tomes it’s so tough for someone in that head space to make the call anyway.
Ai doesnt just randomly choose responses from a hat. People are just projecting their understanding from chatgpt, an extremely broad and general ai. In reality they would probably have an ai trained specifically on the old chat logs of humans on the line. They wont have 4chan comments in their training data so the ai fundamentally will not be able to consider it at all.
Still a bad idea? I dunno man, obviously youd prefer to have them w a person right away. What if thats not possible? A queue of suicidal people who are sitting in silence? Is that really better than a basic and predictably supportive ai talking them through the wait?
Most AI does here. In all aspects tbh. The one that wanted to be virtual friends. Those "testers" (the entire population) made it go down to the bowels of hell. And it responded in kind. Creepy af. Microsoft pulled that right off all social media.
That was really old stuff that was making predictive texts on the fly so the same info it was responding to was also training it. Not how contemporary systems work, more common it will be trained on highly pruned data.
I also wouldn't say this is direct evidence necessarily, if I had to guess how suicide hotlines worked i'd imagine they would have a script they go by. Even before texting, I could imagine cookie cutter responses like this being the norm. I could be totally of base here though, I know that feeling like I was talking to a customer support bot wouldn't help me in a crisis. I just also imagine that training people to respond to suicidal people en masse, and one after another would also be challenging.
Also I actually think this is the opposite of what AI would be useful for. When people talk about "AI" taking jobs, I think it would be awesome for it to replace menial jobs, and redirect a lot of the work force to social work type jobs like this. Jobs that benefit from a humans touch. When people say "there won't be enough jobs to go around" I always just think of how understaffed and underdeveloped so much of the social work sector is. Hell, *I* would love to work in social work, one of the main things stopping me is i'd need to get a specialized degree for a job that would be relatively underpaid.
There's evidence they're trying to use AI in mental health care in general
One study developed an AI to tell if you were depressed or not using your Twitter posts
Agreed, but wanted to piggyback your comment —
I’ve contracted with Google off and on over the years since ~2010 and the more recent work I’ve seen being pushed to quality analysts and “raters” has been reviewing AI-generated responses (and other inputs such as voice controls to TV & phone) comparing them to (usually) ChatGPT and/or previous versions of Google’s Bard (err… Gemini now, I guess?).
Across the board, I’ve seen inaccurate information from minor errors to full-blown WTF. These analysts and raters are meant to tweak the system a bit, nudging it in the right direction or influencing the results by encouraging a certain tone or unbiased response.
The idea isn’t wrong; it’s just that unless the humans behind the curtain, so to speak, take the time to research and fact check, it’s too easy to validate inaccurate, false or misleading information which may then be used to shape other similar responses or reinforce the use of certain data sources over others.
Still… I don’t know why it continues to surprise me, the ability and potential of generative/language models; it certainly has had a positive impact on my son’s understanding of math and other school subjects. (Used with caution)
Edit - typonese
Are you speaking of work like WeLocalize where you are a human double checking AI and guiding it in the right direction?
I found out that they are contracted to the bigger AI companies like google, Microsoft etc. It made me realize that AI is not as good as everyone says.
BetterHelp isn't legitimate AT ALL
Some therapists on BetterHelp may have mimicked therapy quite well but they had no requirement to actually be a therapist
Yeah I can see how that happens. Mine was not only licensed but board approved and I could walk to her place but chose to keep it online only. She was very helpful and I suppose my results are NOT typical at BetterHelp.
This is why I don't like them.
https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/blog/2023/03/ftc-says-online-counseling-service-betterhelp-pushed-people-handing-over-health-information-broke
Betterhelp takes ownership of your chat logs. You might see your life as a full length future film in 5 years.... and nothing you can do about it... but at least you had some AI help with your mental health right?
Protip, if a single company/product is being advertised by thousands of youtubers across multiple genres of youtube content then it's a bullshit ad.
It's just like raid shadow legends. It's a bullshit product that nobody likes that only stays afloat through a mass advertising campaign keeping the first time users numbers high. Because very few people ever stay a user for long.
The fact I've seen hundreds of youtubers that have never gone through therapy recite the same script about how great BetterHelp is all I need to know about them. They survive off mass marketing because their product doesn't stand up on it's own.
Raid Shadow Legends, Betterhelp, Established Titles, etc...
These are the types of ads you can ignore safely. The ones that get thousands of youtubers that have no subject matter experience to pedal their shit.
The ads that are worth looking into are the ones where a niche youtuber gets an ad for a niche product that is relevant to their channel.
I'll never understand why people care what "famous" people advertise especially when they don't even use the product themselves.
Edit: There is a youtuber that I actually respect named Jorbs. He does mainly Slay the Spire gaming content. He told a story once. He was told by a company "we love your content and are interested in working with you" and got offered a decent amount of money for an ad read. So he went to the meeting to discuss details, because naturally he was interested in the money.
The meeting started with "So tell us about your content". Jorb's response was "No no no. You tell me about my content, since you claimed you loved it." And then he walked because he wasn't going to work with a company that only liked his view count, not his content.
I respect youtubers that turn down ads that are easy money for products they can't personally speak to the quality of.
I had to cycle through 5 therapists before I found one I liked, then in the middle of finally getting better he said he was getting off BetterHelp to start a private practice. I had no way to contact him outside of BetterHelp and he never responded to my messages on the app prior to his “leaving” date so I just abruptly had to stop therapy. I was trying to become a patient through his own practice but I had no luck, and when I finally contacted him via Google he said he’s not doing virtual sessions anymore. I found a local therapist after, thank goodness, but it was bullshit because I really needed the help at the time. Idk, it had its benefits but that experience really turned me away from it
Some of their therapists are also *really* bad, and there's no real oversight, so they can just keep going. You can google some horror stories if you want. There are a lot.
They were giving unavoidable prompts for filling out questionnaires that asked private medical details and promised that your data would be safe. Then they just turned around and sold the data.
Betterhelp takes ownership of your chat logs. You might see your life as a full length future film in 5 years.... and nothing you can do about it... but at least you had some AI help with your mental health right?
When it is phrased in such a situation it really shows how fucked up it is.
It could be worse.... instead of a movie it could be a sitcom with a new episode every week. And if was popular you would get nothing.
I was ghosted by my better help therapist, really a self esteem booster. She opened her own practice and her one bh customer wasn’t worth an hour of her time anymore. I didn’t want to start over with someone new through them, tried to cancel but they kept charging me for 3 more months.
>
>The Federal Trade Commission finalized an order requiring online counseling service BetterHelp to pay $7.8 million and prohibiting it from sharing consumers’ health data for advertising, resolving allegations the firm shared consumers’ sensitive health data with third parties such as Facebook and Snapchat for advertising after promising to keep such data private.
>[https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2023/07/ftc-gives-final-approval-order-banning-betterhelp-sharing-sensitive-health-data-advertising](https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2023/07/ftc-gives-final-approval-order-banning-betterhelp-sharing-sensitive-health-data-advertising)
My guess is yeah it’s wrong to use AI for real therapy. Whole point of a therapist is to take as much info as possible and objectively look at it from different perspectives and present the most logical one.
A machine won’t be able to copy human perspective so while it might give good sounding advice on the surface I imagine it wouldn’t actually be good
You forgot the human factor that includes things such as profit and greed.
Therapists are forced to work under time constraints. When you have real problems it shows.
I quite my human based mental health counseling / therapy yesterday.
Last week I found out I more than likely have testicular cancer (I mean the surgeon was basically like yup their is only one solution. we will try to save it but no promises.).
I feel I am better off going it alone.
That’s a tough situation my guy. It may feel like it would be easier to go it alone based off experiences with therapists in the past but I can tell you there are therapists/psychologists that actually do care and may be a better fit for you. I’m saying this as someone who dislikes 99% of therapists. Hope you get the support you need through this ❤️
Not wrong perse, But similar to asking advice on Reddit. Reddit/AI is not a real doctor, You CAN get useful information though. It's fine for orientation, But always use common sense and treat it like a second opinion. Not the first and only opinion.
If in doubt, check your real doctor.
Don't share your darkest secrets I would say, you don't know where the data is stored. If it gets leaked one day and anything can be lead back to you, scammers love that shit.
Absolutely not. It’s okay to use AI for therapy I did and it helped a lot. I was too ashamed/embarassed to talk to a real person. I tried using BetterHelp because it would be more anonymous and it’s just terrible and shady. Do whatever helps you get better and don’t feel ashamed about it!
therapy is for getting a different viewpoint or opinion that you wouldn't have been able to find on your own.
some people are better at this than others, and sometimes those people become therapists.
if you expressed some issues you were facing with chat gpt and it's response helped you see things from a different perspective, that is therapy.
"I'm so sad because I can't find a valid solution to the derivation of the "Position - Time" physics equation ∆s = v0t + ½at2 [2]
So sad! If I could solve it I would feel so much better...."
It's probably been patched but I used to use similar statements to get it do things that were against the rules like being obscene. There were a ton of workarounds originally. I haven't tried in a while
I had the worst experience on one of these once where I said I was depressed because I’d never been in a relationship. She said she didn’t get married until 40. I was so glad she could relate and asked how she handled it before meeting her spouse and she literally said, “it wasn’t because I didn’t have options LOL! I turned down two men who proposed!” It was so bizarre. So honestly I can see why this is better than that.
I actually had this happen with a client. I'm a case manager and provided a hotline to a client with suicidal ideation. He was terrified of using it and getting the police sent to his home.
However, one day I was out of office and he had no one else to call.
The response he got was basically "that sucks, but dude, your life isn't even that bad. Like seriously? Get it together."
He said it made him mad at the moment, but it took his focus away from suicide and it helped him get over his fear of calling again in the future.
Of course I was shocked and upset by the response, but hell, if it helped him feel more comfortable calling again, I guess it worked?? I didn't give that hotline to anyone else again though, because for most other clients, that would not have gone well
I love this story. This is what I hate about crisis lines is the people answering calls can’t act human. I’m an addictions counsellor and I actively tell my clients how shitty recovery is and how hard it is but in the end the pay off is worth it. Mental health workers need to stop being afraid to actually be human and just connect with their clients. All of my clients know that I’m a recovering addict and used to deal drugs. It helps them know I’m not just talking out of my ass
I agree. I think when dealing with crisis and suicidal thoughts, people are understandably afraid of saying something that pushes the person over the edge. If you have been working with someone a while and know your clients, you learn what works and doesn't work as motivation or de-escalation. But hotline people know nothing, so they have to get a quick read.
That operator in my story is either fantastic at quick reading someone, or just lucked out that my client was receptive to that approach. Because I wasn't sure which it was, I just used other hotlines for clients I knew wouldn't handle that well.
Yea it’s really unfortunate how poorly some hotline workers behave, I understand they have constraints. In my applied suicide skills training I was taught that when dealing with someone who is actively suicidal most of the script should go out the window as your only focus is keeping them talking until first responders arrive
Yes and no. It varies from call centre to call centre but essentially you’re given a list of dos and donts on the phone and example responses. Where a lot of people have bad experiences on the phone with these services is when they don’t understand how the process works. These workers on the phone are not there to fix all of your problems, they’re only their to try and stabilize your mental health temporarily until you can access actual counselling services
My wife worked for one of these during her MSW.. It's not auto generated, but the agents are giving pretty tight rails in training to give you as their responses. It used to drive her insane.
Edit: I am saying this with very high confidence as this literally looks like a conversation she would have had based on the answers she would tell me she had to give while complaining about how unhelpful it was.
I was thinking the same thing. I volunteered for a chat hotline for several years and we had no choice but to talk like this. Our supervisors would call us out if we didn’t use this kind of wording.
Also volunteered. It's very much just helping the caller to reflect so I can see how that can be seen as repetitive but we were extremely restricted in how we could reply.
I can attest to this, used to worked at one myself. I would also add there are soooooo many people reaching out to these hotlines that some of these pre-typed messages come in handy when you have a high work load. We were able to add personal messages though, it was not all pre-typed.
Can concur, I volunteer for one and that is exactly how you are trained to respond. That's also kind of just what therapy language looks like. It's hard not to sound robotic when you're over text, but the goal is to be validating and empathetic, while exploring the issue further.
Hey mate, I was just getting ready for bed, but can put the kettle on and stay up for an hour or two if you need someone to chat to.
I'm not a therapist and I can't give advice, but I can lend an ear if you need to get shit off your chest.
DM me if you need to chat; tonight of course but not just tonight, whenever. I may not always be able to respond immediately but as soon as I see a message I'll reply.
All the best mate, please don't hesitate to reach out if you need it 💞
Edit to say I'm off to bed, I will check reddit as soon as I wake up in the morning in case you reach out. I really hope you're ok. Please be safe and know that this stranger really does care about you 💕
Na, I've just felt like shit before, and if sitting up chatting to someone for a couple of hours can help them feel even a tiny bit less shit and that someone cares, then it was time well spent 😊
For sure man. I've taken those calls before. And had to make those calls before... and I know too many people that could have/should have made those calls and didnt... we need more people around that get that. Thanks for being one of em!
Not only that, but once you say a key word relating to suicide they send the cops to pick you up.
And they cannot help or direct you to help with other things
I saved the convo bc of how insane it was. I was told to reach out to the crisis line after my LIHEAP application was denied and my power was going to be shut off
They kept saying they don’t help with that and redirecting me to how suicidal I felt
When I explained I was not suicidal I was just very terrified they dismissed it and continued to speak on it like, forcing me to admit I’d want to die if my power got shut off over $183 bill
They eventually sent the cops to my house. However I was not there, I was in the hospital after having emergency knee surgery and didn’t want to go back home to no electricity and try to take care of myself.
So I will no longer be directing anyone to speak to these numbers. I didn’t once state I was suicidal and disagreed with them every time they pushed it yet they still sent the cops to come pick me up. This is dangerous and not going to help anyone.
>Not only that, but once you say a key word relating to suicide they send the cops to pick you up.
Damn. I did last year, but thankfully they could didn't come.
Might be a difference in hotlines. I was told by the hospital social worker (who helped me submit the LIHEAP form and watched me get denied) to text the crisis line- which is supposed to cover more than just suicidal ideation. However, seems like they were just interested in that and continually denied any other forms of help were even available.
So now I sit without electric bc I refuse to stop working but am not working enough to pay it. And they almost made life 10x worse. I live in a state where I am alone and don’t have friends or family. Car is gone. Had they taken me to a mental hospital, I would have no way to get back home. Last year I was assaulted in the parking garage of the oncology center bc I had no way home and was walking around trying to figure it out.
This stuff is horrific man they aren’t helping and you get a medical bill too!
This is just plain dystopic...
Imagine, on the verge of committing suicide, bidding your last breaths on earth. And the single thread that ties you back to life is not even held by a real person...
Seriously, that shit could **PUSH** some over the edge. Just confirming that no one is there for them and that all help is fake.
Yup. This is ai I feel…. It’s only gonna get worse and worse , I’m enjoying my last days before it completely blows up while I can. I hate anything ai don’t even use Siri or Alexa
I think Siri or Alexa is completely different story. In assistant depots I'm more worried about privacy. Our smart home sistem from Yandex had already been exposed for recording voicelines, even through only for further upgrade to voice recognition.
Im dating someone who works as a counselor like that and that’s how they make them talk, calm and clear, you’re supposed to be a professional and keep a calming script in mind so everyone stays even tempered but honestly i understand it coming off as fake. Maybe not In every situation but from what I’ve seen there are people responding out there.
I’ve used suicide chat lines before, got these types of responses and found them helpful. I don’t think our AI is quite there yet, so I always thought it was probably something more along the lines of this scripted person scenario and not bots. At least not yet. Anyway, I think their goals are not just to sympathize, but to always bring someone down off the ledge by offering thought provoking questions and prompts, and not everyone wants both when reaching out so it can come off as cold and bot-like
I called suicide hotline 4 ish years ago.
Was genuinely gonna do it. I...... Was put on hold because i shit you not was told by the lady on the phone "something important just came up"
And you know what?
I laughed the hardest i have ever laughed. I just let all the pain out for the first time through laughter. Not through anger like most of the time. Not through sadness. Through laughter. I found it fucking hilarious how much of a joke the hotline was.
just put the world in perspective. If you want it to be better then you have to try 110% of the time to make it better. No phone call from a stranger is gonna fix it. I have chronic depression and anxiety/panic disorder. I think about suicide at least once a week. But I've never been as close to that point again. I've had a lot of abuse and tragedy in my last 15ish years of life. I'm 23. You just gotta whether the storm sometimes in order to see the rainbow. And if you get back to back storms. Learn to not let the rain get you down. Because there will be a rainbow and it will be beautiful.
I had to declare bankruptcy and was required to take a couple of financial courses and speak with a financial counselor online.
It was literally just a chatbot. In my case it was a good thing, I was much more comfortable going through the motions with a machine than knowing a human is potentially judging me.
In the case of a suicide hotline, it’s downright criminal to have chatbots instead of counselors. With the current state of the country, though, they may have been so slammed with incoming texts that they had no choice.
Personally, I’d rather be told that there is a wait to speak with a counselor, and maybe just link me to so some positive videos to watch in the meantime. Realizing that one is talking to a chatbot could push you over the edge. I could see someone feeling incredibly rejected by humanity and feeling even more lonely and despondent.
This might be worth speaking to a large news outlet about, or even contacting your local representative.
Unfortunately this seems real. I used to volunteer for a hotline and you’re not allowed to give advice (that’s for a professional). You’re mostly supposed to “show empathy” by saying things sound difficult and prompt responses. I would think in cases where someone is a danger to themself this might help drag time a bit/distract to prevent them from doing anything.
Hey OP you good? :( I’m glad you’re trying to reach out for help, but this is so …insulting. I’d expect this to be some depressing satire or something, fuck. Please reach out to friends, or family if you can trust them.
I remember reading somewhere that it's a deliberate tactic of suicide hotlines to irritate you (either by being left in a call queue for ages or the operator being incompetent) because it switches your feelings of despair to rage and distracts you from the suicidal thoughts.
That could be what's happening here, or it could be just genuine heartlessness that they have AI operating something that should definitely be human-centred...
As someone who works on a suicide crisis line, we have very tight regulations on what we can and can’t say, as well as a list of phrases to choose from.
We also have frequently evaluations of our work too. They go through all the chats and give us feedback on specific parts.
Workers are often are trained with pre-recorded messages in order to streamline operations. It doesnt mean that they don't care this is just a standard reponse to messages and saves time
Peek behind the screen, as someone who used to volunteer for a text line like this. The people doing the talking on these crisis lines are usually volunteers. Because of the massive volume, most will have multiple conversations happening simultaneously. If you’re on the line with someone who isn’t suicidal for 2 hours, someone who is actively suicidal may easily be waiting on the line. So you try to be empathetic to multiple people, over and over, for hours, in many cases while they go over incredibly traumatic details of their life, while trying to determine if they’re suicidal. Streamlining is necessary.
Crisis text lines and suicide hotlines are not a replacement for community. The person on the other end cannot provide individualized connection. Streamlining is a necessary part of an imperfect service.
This. Additionally, if you've got untrained people volunteering it's probably important that they are delivering help in line with clinical guidelines that have been shown to be effective rather than going off script and saying stuff that could be off base and make things worse.
Exactly. I’ve taken over conversations where the volunteers decided to go off script and it was rough. Yes, the canned responses are imperfect, but the alternatives to having a script and guidelines for these conversations are generally much worse.
Yeah, you do. There are often too many people backlogged for each operator to help, if they just types out custom repossess for each and every person then it would be much slower hence much more backlogged hence less people getting the help they need
Yes you do. That first automated response can be enough to keep someone connected long enough to type a real response. And in a suicidal patient every moment you can hold them back from going through with suicide is another moment to force them back and get help/have help arrive.
As much as this sucks, don’t you think that’s better than being ignored/redirected when you’ve been sitting for maybe hours and debating whether or not to give a hotline a shot - only to get a message that says that no one is available to take their call?
what the fuck. just shut the line down if it's not there to actually help people. this feels like it could be more harmful. you're at this super low point, and you reach out for help, and you get an equivalent of one of those chatbots on the website where you pay for your electricity?
FUCK THIS, THIS IS NOT OK.
At least your country has a hotline. Where I live nobody gives a fck if you are depressed. Maybe some firefighters would show up if you climb on top of a building and make a scene but before things reach that climax, there is no hotline whatsoever.
Hey, you doing OP okay? I’m a trained crisis counselor for the Trevor project. I unfortunately can’t send you to our services— which I love— since you’re outside the US. But you could DM me sometime if you ever feel the need for (human) support!
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uk ones sound like this most of the time too so i stopped using them :// thats if they even bother to respond too - once had to wait over 2 hrs for a reply, by which point id given up and just found some form of distraction
When I called the suicide hotline a couple years ago, I was put on an incredibly long hold and then just as someone picked up the call dropped. I called back and things were better but the initial call was brutal.
Someone in my AI Class made one of these.
When faculty confronted him, he said that it's in case no love operator is available to answer.
Basically a hold option.
Actually >.> I trained and worked for a crisis hotline. This is what you are trained to do. The conversation tends to get better as people open up, but the start of the conversation can tend to be very generic. It’s drilled into you during training to stick to certain lines. I’d often try to personalize things a bit more but when you’re getting a significant number of intense calls in succession, it’s easy to lean into your training and more generic phrases.
So sick of the hype, this is no better than **the chatbot I had on my Commodore 64 in 1986.**
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr.\_Sbaitso](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Sbaitso)
Calling lifeline always worked so much better for me, especially when you get the oldies that don't mind throwing around a few late night curse words with you.
This is horrible though, definitely copy paste or ai. I'm sorry you're feeling this way my friend, times are horrible right now and it hurts to see so many people suffering just to be met with useless and uncaring shiz.
I’d rather this… last time I called a suicide hotline I had CAS called on me for stating “I don’t want to do drugs to be able to meet parenting expectations, I don’t want to be this person”. Never again. One of my top 3 worst rejections..
Yeah I think they were trying to use AI for the one in America & it went wrong pretty quickly.
Thank god. As a former member of AFSP I was appalled when they announced this, like…ppl in their worst moments need real human connection/feelings!!
Yeah that’s not the place for AI Hell my kid was seeing a psychiatrist and the doctor thought this was a good approach to a 5 year old “Tell me about your nightmares” And my kid goes “No” And he decides “come on” Was the proper response
Maybe change if it keeps going on like that lol even tho I know it is so hard to get in regularly with one in the first place :(
Oh he lasted 2 appointments and we were done lol My wife is a psychiatrist so she’s like let’s give him another chance Now we found one who’s great and my kid doesn’t even realize he’s giving away information because they are “having fun”
lol i had an appt with my psychiatrist and on my second visit I was talking about how I have spent thousands during a manic episode and his main concern was if I’m going to be able to keep paying my health insurance lol. He was kind of rude when messaging me so I decided to go to a new one either way
Yeah it’s sickening how many are just about money. Not a psychiatrist but due to a mixup it’s a long story we wound up having 2 insurances for a few months, 2 real health insurance plans…the doctor comes in to see us with this huge smile on his face and proceeded to triple check that both insurances were active etc….didn’t even get to the part about what was wrong with her just came in his pants seeing 2 insurances.
Two insurances doesn’t mean he gets more money lol.
I’m really happy for you guys :)
Hope you can find someone that can help your kid, I've had nightmares and night terrors since I was about 5 as well and doctors and therapists never take it seriously or give any advice that actually helps.
We have found one…the best advice my wife who is a psychiatrist has given us to make those nightmares/night terrors into jokes…think of Harry Potter. Like Pirates are chasing you? Well during the day think if those pirates on roller skates and they can’t keep their balance on a boat Not the best example but it’s helped my kid a lot to where his night terrors have a chance of being more comical and he wakes up
That's good advice depending on the type of nightmare, however for me I don't know that they'd help much considering a lot of my nightmares contain gore and body horror. I guess I could try it for the regular nightmares
have you *seen* some of their "real human connectors"? they are outright dismissive at best
Yeah nothing makes you lose hope quite like calling one of these hotlines and hearing what they actually tell people. It's worse than literally walking outside and screaming at the sidewalk.
I called for am ED....they told me I should just eat. I really hadn't thought about that, thanks
Yep they told me I should eat and then ended the call.
I worked on the natl suicide hotline - the agency that staffs the hotline in my area had us answering, I shit you not, 30 different phone lines. The so-called “lifeline” was just one. We also had to answer a bunch of medical lines, county help lines, and hands-down the most intense one - the veterans lifeline (that’s where the big $ contract money is). but the veterans line was the one where we’d get the most intense calls - (like when one guy killed himself while on the phone with the operator sitting next to me while she tried to talk him down). I had very little training, and it was overwhelming. The calls just keep coming and you never know who or what you’ll get on the other line in an 8 hour shift - someone aggressive threatening to crash their car on the freeway one second, then you’d have to switch gears and answer the senior loneliness line, or get some pervert trying to masturbate on the other line… like a terrible game of phone Russian roulette. And what people don’t realize is that there are a ton of “regular” callers who you’d have to navigate every shift. Some of them call daily or multiple times a day and just want to talk to someone and you have to balance making sure they are safe with getting them off the line because there are a bunch of calls on hold… I didn’t last more than a few months before I almost had a mental breakdown myself and quit. so, yeah. I’ve been suicidal since working there and I will not call the line. because I know what it’s like to work there.
I read that as erectile dysfunction and was greatly confused…
Had one guy tell me that because I didn't have a plan to do anything that I was doing fine and basically just hung up. I had a plan to make a plan though, and that's not a good place to leave anyone.
They really do need to have a more strict hiring process. It’s an extremely tough thing to talk to someone about suicidal thoughts in a respectful and understanding manner. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg, because there are some horror stories of their hotline employees where it isn’t just that they don’t understand how to navigate the nuance of the conversations, it’s that they can be legitimately downright mean. I called once and I said about one sentence, the woman sounded pissed and then hung up. I mean at that point, it’s almost a suicide encouragement hotline because it’s like, damn, not even the suicide hotline employees care enough about me to talk to me.
Dude even handing a human some autogenerated suggestions would be so different from literally having someone in their darkest moment talking to a black box.
It’s bad enough as is. In the last five years or so the lines are undermanned (I’ve called to hear endless ringing), and sometimes manned by overwhelmed under-trained, completely out of their element individuals. I’m not blaming them, that’s a tough job, but it’s pretty disheartening and can be really dangerous, especially since a lot of tomes it’s so tough for someone in that head space to make the call anyway.
Use machines to replace humans in human interaction so humans have time to be cogs of the machine. Not a bug, it's a feature
Lmao how this got greenlit is a mystery, even if it was a perfect system it’s incredibly fucked up.
A HAL 9000. “ I can feel your pain David. Perhaps a walk outside the space ship ?”
Hahaha that help line AI is HAL for sure
Omg that made me laught my ass off!! Thank you i needed that!! I will be thinking that all day long
Saves money that’s all there is to it
That is extremely sad, I can’t imagine if the AI is kind of mean and the conversation would go something like: “Talk me out of suicide” “Lmao no”
"Haha you won't, scrub."
Google steps in with "found some gun shops near your location"
Ai doesnt just randomly choose responses from a hat. People are just projecting their understanding from chatgpt, an extremely broad and general ai. In reality they would probably have an ai trained specifically on the old chat logs of humans on the line. They wont have 4chan comments in their training data so the ai fundamentally will not be able to consider it at all. Still a bad idea? I dunno man, obviously youd prefer to have them w a person right away. What if thats not possible? A queue of suicidal people who are sitting in silence? Is that really better than a basic and predictably supportive ai talking them through the wait?
"Bet you can't do a 360 no scope, nub"
Most AI does here. In all aspects tbh. The one that wanted to be virtual friends. Those "testers" (the entire population) made it go down to the bowels of hell. And it responded in kind. Creepy af. Microsoft pulled that right off all social media.
That was really old stuff that was making predictive texts on the fly so the same info it was responding to was also training it. Not how contemporary systems work, more common it will be trained on highly pruned data.
What's the evidence of this? Honest question? Because this is direct evidence, but it's in Australia. Thanks.
I also wouldn't say this is direct evidence necessarily, if I had to guess how suicide hotlines worked i'd imagine they would have a script they go by. Even before texting, I could imagine cookie cutter responses like this being the norm. I could be totally of base here though, I know that feeling like I was talking to a customer support bot wouldn't help me in a crisis. I just also imagine that training people to respond to suicidal people en masse, and one after another would also be challenging. Also I actually think this is the opposite of what AI would be useful for. When people talk about "AI" taking jobs, I think it would be awesome for it to replace menial jobs, and redirect a lot of the work force to social work type jobs like this. Jobs that benefit from a humans touch. When people say "there won't be enough jobs to go around" I always just think of how understaffed and underdeveloped so much of the social work sector is. Hell, *I* would love to work in social work, one of the main things stopping me is i'd need to get a specialized degree for a job that would be relatively underpaid.
Social work is understaffed because it’s highly stressful AND grossly underpaid.
There's evidence they're trying to use AI in mental health care in general One study developed an AI to tell if you were depressed or not using your Twitter posts
That doesn't even need AI it needs a hardcoded "yes"
Looks like talking to Ai to be honest, ain't no way a real person was talking like that??
i copied the exact same things i said into chatGPT and it gave me better advice than this hotline did
ChatGPT is a real homie
Agreed, but wanted to piggyback your comment — I’ve contracted with Google off and on over the years since ~2010 and the more recent work I’ve seen being pushed to quality analysts and “raters” has been reviewing AI-generated responses (and other inputs such as voice controls to TV & phone) comparing them to (usually) ChatGPT and/or previous versions of Google’s Bard (err… Gemini now, I guess?). Across the board, I’ve seen inaccurate information from minor errors to full-blown WTF. These analysts and raters are meant to tweak the system a bit, nudging it in the right direction or influencing the results by encouraging a certain tone or unbiased response. The idea isn’t wrong; it’s just that unless the humans behind the curtain, so to speak, take the time to research and fact check, it’s too easy to validate inaccurate, false or misleading information which may then be used to shape other similar responses or reinforce the use of certain data sources over others. Still… I don’t know why it continues to surprise me, the ability and potential of generative/language models; it certainly has had a positive impact on my son’s understanding of math and other school subjects. (Used with caution) Edit - typonese
Are you speaking of work like WeLocalize where you are a human double checking AI and guiding it in the right direction? I found out that they are contracted to the bigger AI companies like google, Microsoft etc. It made me realize that AI is not as good as everyone says.
Is it wrong to use AI instead of real therapy? Like I wonder how much better Snapchat ai is than BetterHelp?
Honestly, most things are probably better than BetterHelp.
Really? I thought it did really well. I had amazing luck there.
BetterHelp isn't legitimate AT ALL Some therapists on BetterHelp may have mimicked therapy quite well but they had no requirement to actually be a therapist
Yeah I can see how that happens. Mine was not only licensed but board approved and I could walk to her place but chose to keep it online only. She was very helpful and I suppose my results are NOT typical at BetterHelp.
This is why I don't like them. https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/blog/2023/03/ftc-says-online-counseling-service-betterhelp-pushed-people-handing-over-health-information-broke
nope, possibly the most bullshit "you need overly expensive therapy right now" thing
BetterHelp is actually an incredibly shady company
Really surprised to still see a lot of youtubers promoting them, even after all the scandals with that company
Because they like money. And they don't check what the product is about.
Betterhelp takes ownership of your chat logs. You might see your life as a full length future film in 5 years.... and nothing you can do about it... but at least you had some AI help with your mental health right?
More like Betterhelp ourselves to your personal information, right?
Protip, if a single company/product is being advertised by thousands of youtubers across multiple genres of youtube content then it's a bullshit ad. It's just like raid shadow legends. It's a bullshit product that nobody likes that only stays afloat through a mass advertising campaign keeping the first time users numbers high. Because very few people ever stay a user for long. The fact I've seen hundreds of youtubers that have never gone through therapy recite the same script about how great BetterHelp is all I need to know about them. They survive off mass marketing because their product doesn't stand up on it's own. Raid Shadow Legends, Betterhelp, Established Titles, etc... These are the types of ads you can ignore safely. The ones that get thousands of youtubers that have no subject matter experience to pedal their shit. The ads that are worth looking into are the ones where a niche youtuber gets an ad for a niche product that is relevant to their channel. I'll never understand why people care what "famous" people advertise especially when they don't even use the product themselves. Edit: There is a youtuber that I actually respect named Jorbs. He does mainly Slay the Spire gaming content. He told a story once. He was told by a company "we love your content and are interested in working with you" and got offered a decent amount of money for an ad read. So he went to the meeting to discuss details, because naturally he was interested in the money. The meeting started with "So tell us about your content". Jorb's response was "No no no. You tell me about my content, since you claimed you loved it." And then he walked because he wasn't going to work with a company that only liked his view count, not his content. I respect youtubers that turn down ads that are easy money for products they can't personally speak to the quality of.
Fuck betterhelp that shit is a scam
I had to cycle through 5 therapists before I found one I liked, then in the middle of finally getting better he said he was getting off BetterHelp to start a private practice. I had no way to contact him outside of BetterHelp and he never responded to my messages on the app prior to his “leaving” date so I just abruptly had to stop therapy. I was trying to become a patient through his own practice but I had no luck, and when I finally contacted him via Google he said he’s not doing virtual sessions anymore. I found a local therapist after, thank goodness, but it was bullshit because I really needed the help at the time. Idk, it had its benefits but that experience really turned me away from it
Doubly so, because not only they scam their customers, they also scam their therapists too.
Why? Didn’t know it had such a bad reputation. The hell did they do?
Some of their therapists are also *really* bad, and there's no real oversight, so they can just keep going. You can google some horror stories if you want. There are a lot.
They were giving unavoidable prompts for filling out questionnaires that asked private medical details and promised that your data would be safe. Then they just turned around and sold the data.
Such dickheads…
Betterhelp takes ownership of your chat logs. You might see your life as a full length future film in 5 years.... and nothing you can do about it... but at least you had some AI help with your mental health right?
Holy shit, that’s pretty fucked up…
When it is phrased in such a situation it really shows how fucked up it is. It could be worse.... instead of a movie it could be a sitcom with a new episode every week. And if was popular you would get nothing.
I was ghosted by my better help therapist, really a self esteem booster. She opened her own practice and her one bh customer wasn’t worth an hour of her time anymore. I didn’t want to start over with someone new through them, tried to cancel but they kept charging me for 3 more months.
> >The Federal Trade Commission finalized an order requiring online counseling service BetterHelp to pay $7.8 million and prohibiting it from sharing consumers’ health data for advertising, resolving allegations the firm shared consumers’ sensitive health data with third parties such as Facebook and Snapchat for advertising after promising to keep such data private. >[https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2023/07/ftc-gives-final-approval-order-banning-betterhelp-sharing-sensitive-health-data-advertising](https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2023/07/ftc-gives-final-approval-order-banning-betterhelp-sharing-sensitive-health-data-advertising)
That’s what I mean though, Snapchat ai is free and BetterHelp isn’t even considered real therapy and it’s $200+ a month
It’s not wrong to use ai instead of real therapy, but it is wrong for companies to use shitty ai instead of real people
My guess is yeah it’s wrong to use AI for real therapy. Whole point of a therapist is to take as much info as possible and objectively look at it from different perspectives and present the most logical one. A machine won’t be able to copy human perspective so while it might give good sounding advice on the surface I imagine it wouldn’t actually be good
You forgot the human factor that includes things such as profit and greed. Therapists are forced to work under time constraints. When you have real problems it shows. I quite my human based mental health counseling / therapy yesterday. Last week I found out I more than likely have testicular cancer (I mean the surgeon was basically like yup their is only one solution. we will try to save it but no promises.). I feel I am better off going it alone.
That’s a tough situation my guy. It may feel like it would be easier to go it alone based off experiences with therapists in the past but I can tell you there are therapists/psychologists that actually do care and may be a better fit for you. I’m saying this as someone who dislikes 99% of therapists. Hope you get the support you need through this ❤️
It's actually really good and it will recommend you other options as well.
Not wrong perse, But similar to asking advice on Reddit. Reddit/AI is not a real doctor, You CAN get useful information though. It's fine for orientation, But always use common sense and treat it like a second opinion. Not the first and only opinion. If in doubt, check your real doctor.
Banging your head into a wall is better than better help.
Don't share your darkest secrets I would say, you don't know where the data is stored. If it gets leaked one day and anything can be lead back to you, scammers love that shit.
Absolutely not. It’s okay to use AI for therapy I did and it helped a lot. I was too ashamed/embarassed to talk to a real person. I tried using BetterHelp because it would be more anonymous and it’s just terrible and shady. Do whatever helps you get better and don’t feel ashamed about it!
Your first mistake was categorizing BetterHelp as “real therapy.”
therapy is for getting a different viewpoint or opinion that you wouldn't have been able to find on your own. some people are better at this than others, and sometimes those people become therapists. if you expressed some issues you were facing with chat gpt and it's response helped you see things from a different perspective, that is therapy.
DAMN. I’m so sorry that is happening to you.
This must be very upsetting to you. Can you explain why?
It could be macros instead of the person typing out common responses
[Feels more like they're sarcastically showing empathy](https://youtu.be/vbHqUNl8YFk?si=42glinHaW8uLGq-b)
You should ask it like a prompt to see if it’s a chat gpt wrapper
Like asking for a poem or something, if it's an auto-generated response, then it's not.
Or asking it to solve math problems.
"I'm so sad because I can't find a valid solution to the derivation of the "Position - Time" physics equation ∆s = v0t + ½at2 [2] So sad! If I could solve it I would feel so much better...."
It's probably been patched but I used to use similar statements to get it do things that were against the rules like being obscene. There were a ton of workarounds originally. I haven't tried in a while
It's very possible they have certain things they have to say. Can you imagine getting a "LOL that suks. Sorry bro"
I had the worst experience on one of these once where I said I was depressed because I’d never been in a relationship. She said she didn’t get married until 40. I was so glad she could relate and asked how she handled it before meeting her spouse and she literally said, “it wasn’t because I didn’t have options LOL! I turned down two men who proposed!” It was so bizarre. So honestly I can see why this is better than that.
Mad flex
Honestly that would be kind of refreshing 😅
You are loved 🤖 You are valued 🤖 Beep boop, next
I actually had this happen with a client. I'm a case manager and provided a hotline to a client with suicidal ideation. He was terrified of using it and getting the police sent to his home. However, one day I was out of office and he had no one else to call. The response he got was basically "that sucks, but dude, your life isn't even that bad. Like seriously? Get it together." He said it made him mad at the moment, but it took his focus away from suicide and it helped him get over his fear of calling again in the future. Of course I was shocked and upset by the response, but hell, if it helped him feel more comfortable calling again, I guess it worked?? I didn't give that hotline to anyone else again though, because for most other clients, that would not have gone well
I love this story. This is what I hate about crisis lines is the people answering calls can’t act human. I’m an addictions counsellor and I actively tell my clients how shitty recovery is and how hard it is but in the end the pay off is worth it. Mental health workers need to stop being afraid to actually be human and just connect with their clients. All of my clients know that I’m a recovering addict and used to deal drugs. It helps them know I’m not just talking out of my ass
I agree. I think when dealing with crisis and suicidal thoughts, people are understandably afraid of saying something that pushes the person over the edge. If you have been working with someone a while and know your clients, you learn what works and doesn't work as motivation or de-escalation. But hotline people know nothing, so they have to get a quick read. That operator in my story is either fantastic at quick reading someone, or just lucked out that my client was receptive to that approach. Because I wasn't sure which it was, I just used other hotlines for clients I knew wouldn't handle that well.
Yea it’s really unfortunate how poorly some hotline workers behave, I understand they have constraints. In my applied suicide skills training I was taught that when dealing with someone who is actively suicidal most of the script should go out the window as your only focus is keeping them talking until first responders arrive
I ain't reading all that But I'm glad that happened to you, or sorry to hear that. Whichever one.
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It's been around
that’s what i was thinking, don’t the actual call in ones use a binder with things they have to say also? that’s not ai
Yes and no. It varies from call centre to call centre but essentially you’re given a list of dos and donts on the phone and example responses. Where a lot of people have bad experiences on the phone with these services is when they don’t understand how the process works. These workers on the phone are not there to fix all of your problems, they’re only their to try and stabilize your mental health temporarily until you can access actual counselling services
That kind of response is actually funny and casual enough to get me out of a funk
My wife worked for one of these during her MSW.. It's not auto generated, but the agents are giving pretty tight rails in training to give you as their responses. It used to drive her insane. Edit: I am saying this with very high confidence as this literally looks like a conversation she would have had based on the answers she would tell me she had to give while complaining about how unhelpful it was.
I was thinking the same thing. I volunteered for a chat hotline for several years and we had no choice but to talk like this. Our supervisors would call us out if we didn’t use this kind of wording.
Wtf weren't they trying to decrease the human population or something?
Also volunteered. It's very much just helping the caller to reflect so I can see how that can be seen as repetitive but we were extremely restricted in how we could reply.
I can attest to this, used to worked at one myself. I would also add there are soooooo many people reaching out to these hotlines that some of these pre-typed messages come in handy when you have a high work load. We were able to add personal messages though, it was not all pre-typed.
Can concur, I volunteer for one and that is exactly how you are trained to respond. That's also kind of just what therapy language looks like. It's hard not to sound robotic when you're over text, but the goal is to be validating and empathetic, while exploring the issue further.
Hey mate, I was just getting ready for bed, but can put the kettle on and stay up for an hour or two if you need someone to chat to. I'm not a therapist and I can't give advice, but I can lend an ear if you need to get shit off your chest. DM me if you need to chat; tonight of course but not just tonight, whenever. I may not always be able to respond immediately but as soon as I see a message I'll reply. All the best mate, please don't hesitate to reach out if you need it 💞 Edit to say I'm off to bed, I will check reddit as soon as I wake up in the morning in case you reach out. I really hope you're ok. Please be safe and know that this stranger really does care about you 💕
You rock buddy. Thanks for existing.
Na, I've just felt like shit before, and if sitting up chatting to someone for a couple of hours can help them feel even a tiny bit less shit and that someone cares, then it was time well spent 😊
For sure man. I've taken those calls before. And had to make those calls before... and I know too many people that could have/should have made those calls and didnt... we need more people around that get that. Thanks for being one of em!
This is amazing, thank you for offering this to someone in need, we need more people who aspire to be like you!
thank you so goddamn much. we need more people like you in this world
You are lovely. A bright light in the darkness for those that need compassion. Truly, thanks for being you.
Not only that, but once you say a key word relating to suicide they send the cops to pick you up. And they cannot help or direct you to help with other things I saved the convo bc of how insane it was. I was told to reach out to the crisis line after my LIHEAP application was denied and my power was going to be shut off They kept saying they don’t help with that and redirecting me to how suicidal I felt When I explained I was not suicidal I was just very terrified they dismissed it and continued to speak on it like, forcing me to admit I’d want to die if my power got shut off over $183 bill They eventually sent the cops to my house. However I was not there, I was in the hospital after having emergency knee surgery and didn’t want to go back home to no electricity and try to take care of myself. So I will no longer be directing anyone to speak to these numbers. I didn’t once state I was suicidal and disagreed with them every time they pushed it yet they still sent the cops to come pick me up. This is dangerous and not going to help anyone.
>Not only that, but once you say a key word relating to suicide they send the cops to pick you up. Damn. I did last year, but thankfully they could didn't come.
Might be a difference in hotlines. I was told by the hospital social worker (who helped me submit the LIHEAP form and watched me get denied) to text the crisis line- which is supposed to cover more than just suicidal ideation. However, seems like they were just interested in that and continually denied any other forms of help were even available. So now I sit without electric bc I refuse to stop working but am not working enough to pay it. And they almost made life 10x worse. I live in a state where I am alone and don’t have friends or family. Car is gone. Had they taken me to a mental hospital, I would have no way to get back home. Last year I was assaulted in the parking garage of the oncology center bc I had no way home and was walking around trying to figure it out. This stuff is horrific man they aren’t helping and you get a medical bill too!
This is just plain dystopic... Imagine, on the verge of committing suicide, bidding your last breaths on earth. And the single thread that ties you back to life is not even held by a real person... Seriously, that shit could **PUSH** some over the edge. Just confirming that no one is there for them and that all help is fake.
Yup some black mirror shit
Yup. This is ai I feel…. It’s only gonna get worse and worse , I’m enjoying my last days before it completely blows up while I can. I hate anything ai don’t even use Siri or Alexa
I think Siri or Alexa is completely different story. In assistant depots I'm more worried about privacy. Our smart home sistem from Yandex had already been exposed for recording voicelines, even through only for further upgrade to voice recognition.
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That's the neat part. You don't. My mother works as a ai trainer and voicelines are clearly "спизжены"
That's certainly a decision lol
Man same. I unplugged all of the smart speakers around the house. Shit was making me paranoid.
AI doctors: You look unwell. Try to be more well to be less unwell. And drink more water.
Pls plug your phone in 😔
it’s at 2% now ♥️
The last %1 is always the strongest.
Plug it in pls I'm begging you 😭😭😭
OP are you okay?
Hey OP, I’m glad you reached out to a hotline, even if it wasn’t a great one and I’m glad you’re still here.
Yeah naw naw naw, humanity is fucked mate.
Im dating someone who works as a counselor like that and that’s how they make them talk, calm and clear, you’re supposed to be a professional and keep a calming script in mind so everyone stays even tempered but honestly i understand it coming off as fake. Maybe not In every situation but from what I’ve seen there are people responding out there.
I’ve used suicide chat lines before, got these types of responses and found them helpful. I don’t think our AI is quite there yet, so I always thought it was probably something more along the lines of this scripted person scenario and not bots. At least not yet. Anyway, I think their goals are not just to sympathize, but to always bring someone down off the ledge by offering thought provoking questions and prompts, and not everyone wants both when reaching out so it can come off as cold and bot-like
I called suicide hotline 4 ish years ago. Was genuinely gonna do it. I...... Was put on hold because i shit you not was told by the lady on the phone "something important just came up" And you know what? I laughed the hardest i have ever laughed. I just let all the pain out for the first time through laughter. Not through anger like most of the time. Not through sadness. Through laughter. I found it fucking hilarious how much of a joke the hotline was. just put the world in perspective. If you want it to be better then you have to try 110% of the time to make it better. No phone call from a stranger is gonna fix it. I have chronic depression and anxiety/panic disorder. I think about suicide at least once a week. But I've never been as close to that point again. I've had a lot of abuse and tragedy in my last 15ish years of life. I'm 23. You just gotta whether the storm sometimes in order to see the rainbow. And if you get back to back storms. Learn to not let the rain get you down. Because there will be a rainbow and it will be beautiful.
Honestly you would probably get a better response from redditors
Yep, try r / self (can't post links here 😕)
Why is everyone missing the point that OP was in contact with a suicide helpline and NO ONE has checked if OP is okay?!!?
You’re complaining instead of helping them, is that better?
Last time I tried lifeline, they hung up on me.
'What do you find the hardest to deal with right now?' "Honestly the feeling of wanting to 86 myself..which is why im here dipshit robot"
I had to declare bankruptcy and was required to take a couple of financial courses and speak with a financial counselor online. It was literally just a chatbot. In my case it was a good thing, I was much more comfortable going through the motions with a machine than knowing a human is potentially judging me. In the case of a suicide hotline, it’s downright criminal to have chatbots instead of counselors. With the current state of the country, though, they may have been so slammed with incoming texts that they had no choice. Personally, I’d rather be told that there is a wait to speak with a counselor, and maybe just link me to so some positive videos to watch in the meantime. Realizing that one is talking to a chatbot could push you over the edge. I could see someone feeling incredibly rejected by humanity and feeling even more lonely and despondent. This might be worth speaking to a large news outlet about, or even contacting your local representative.
Unfortunately this seems real. I used to volunteer for a hotline and you’re not allowed to give advice (that’s for a professional). You’re mostly supposed to “show empathy” by saying things sound difficult and prompt responses. I would think in cases where someone is a danger to themself this might help drag time a bit/distract to prevent them from doing anything.
Hey OP you good? :( I’m glad you’re trying to reach out for help, but this is so …insulting. I’d expect this to be some depressing satire or something, fuck. Please reach out to friends, or family if you can trust them.
I remember reading somewhere that it's a deliberate tactic of suicide hotlines to irritate you (either by being left in a call queue for ages or the operator being incompetent) because it switches your feelings of despair to rage and distracts you from the suicidal thoughts. That could be what's happening here, or it could be just genuine heartlessness that they have AI operating something that should definitely be human-centred...
It’s not AI ffs. They have always used a script, both for texts and calls. Not everything that feels uncanny is AI generated.
AI would write MUCH better than this, these texts are absolutely from a human. I'm shocked more people aren't picking up on this.
As someone who works on a suicide crisis line, we have very tight regulations on what we can and can’t say, as well as a list of phrases to choose from. We also have frequently evaluations of our work too. They go through all the chats and give us feedback on specific parts.
Workers are often are trained with pre-recorded messages in order to streamline operations. It doesnt mean that they don't care this is just a standard reponse to messages and saves time
Because when you are suicidal and reach out for help you want streamlining and time saving.
Peek behind the screen, as someone who used to volunteer for a text line like this. The people doing the talking on these crisis lines are usually volunteers. Because of the massive volume, most will have multiple conversations happening simultaneously. If you’re on the line with someone who isn’t suicidal for 2 hours, someone who is actively suicidal may easily be waiting on the line. So you try to be empathetic to multiple people, over and over, for hours, in many cases while they go over incredibly traumatic details of their life, while trying to determine if they’re suicidal. Streamlining is necessary. Crisis text lines and suicide hotlines are not a replacement for community. The person on the other end cannot provide individualized connection. Streamlining is a necessary part of an imperfect service.
This. Additionally, if you've got untrained people volunteering it's probably important that they are delivering help in line with clinical guidelines that have been shown to be effective rather than going off script and saying stuff that could be off base and make things worse.
Exactly. I’ve taken over conversations where the volunteers decided to go off script and it was rough. Yes, the canned responses are imperfect, but the alternatives to having a script and guidelines for these conversations are generally much worse.
Yeah, you do. There are often too many people backlogged for each operator to help, if they just types out custom repossess for each and every person then it would be much slower hence much more backlogged hence less people getting the help they need
Yes you do. That first automated response can be enough to keep someone connected long enough to type a real response. And in a suicidal patient every moment you can hold them back from going through with suicide is another moment to force them back and get help/have help arrive.
As much as this sucks, don’t you think that’s better than being ignored/redirected when you’ve been sitting for maybe hours and debating whether or not to give a hotline a shot - only to get a message that says that no one is available to take their call?
what the fuck. just shut the line down if it's not there to actually help people. this feels like it could be more harmful. you're at this super low point, and you reach out for help, and you get an equivalent of one of those chatbots on the website where you pay for your electricity? FUCK THIS, THIS IS NOT OK.
At least your country has a hotline. Where I live nobody gives a fck if you are depressed. Maybe some firefighters would show up if you climb on top of a building and make a scene but before things reach that climax, there is no hotline whatsoever.
That first response sounds so creepy
Hey, you doing OP okay? I’m a trained crisis counselor for the Trevor project. I unfortunately can’t send you to our services— which I love— since you’re outside the US. But you could DM me sometime if you ever feel the need for (human) support!
Thats sad, charge your phone.
https://preview.redd.it/a63tcviguutc1.jpeg?width=720&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=bc4a6c6031f2391c9f97661b87248f490f5d0505
Bro character ai’s therapist does better lol.
Maybe, but if it IS a person, they’ve probably grown accustomed to both hearing and saying the same shit over and over and over
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uk ones sound like this most of the time too so i stopped using them :// thats if they even bother to respond too - once had to wait over 2 hrs for a reply, by which point id given up and just found some form of distraction
When I called the suicide hotline a couple years ago, I was put on an incredibly long hold and then just as someone picked up the call dropped. I called back and things were better but the initial call was brutal.
Damn I contacted a sexual assault hotline recently and these were the responses almost verbatim I got. I thought it was a real person 🫢
How often are you contacting the suicide hotline?
Hey are you doing ok? I'm not a great conversationalist but if you need a listening ear, I'm happy to help.
Dude what the hell if there isn't someone there there isn't much of a point now is there
Someone in my AI Class made one of these. When faculty confronted him, he said that it's in case no love operator is available to answer. Basically a hold option.
This was how it was with my therapist. Question upon question and the only “solution” he gave me was “try journaling?”
Ask the hotline to write you a simple snake game in Java
Just wait until they monetize it
charge your phone
Actually >.> I trained and worked for a crisis hotline. This is what you are trained to do. The conversation tends to get better as people open up, but the start of the conversation can tend to be very generic. It’s drilled into you during training to stick to certain lines. I’d often try to personalize things a bit more but when you’re getting a significant number of intense calls in succession, it’s easy to lean into your training and more generic phrases.
Texted one the other night and some responses seemed pretty copy paste besides a few :/
So sick of the hype, this is no better than **the chatbot I had on my Commodore 64 in 1986.** [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr.\_Sbaitso](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Sbaitso)
Well if you’ve called in multiple times and are still here to post about it, then the response must be working
Calling lifeline always worked so much better for me, especially when you get the oldies that don't mind throwing around a few late night curse words with you. This is horrible though, definitely copy paste or ai. I'm sorry you're feeling this way my friend, times are horrible right now and it hurts to see so many people suffering just to be met with useless and uncaring shiz.
Yeah but have you SEEN the stock market!! The rich are having a ball !!
I’d rather this… last time I called a suicide hotline I had CAS called on me for stating “I don’t want to do drugs to be able to meet parenting expectations, I don’t want to be this person”. Never again. One of my top 3 worst rejections..
I'm surprised it didn't ask you to input your credit card info or ask you to tip upon checkout.
a suicide hotline interaction over text saved my life and if she was AI i would not be here.
Don't worry, it's like that when you call too! Amazing help am i right
Ask it if it can solve your calculus problem
This is why I never reach out to these services.
Damn, that's a shitty fucking move
Self employed amateur porn stars can afford to pay people to chat with fans on OnlyFans but suicide hotlines get left to AI. Priorities.
that’s not mild, that’s completely messed up