The trick is not to engage in an information dump at the expense of the reader’s patience. A great practitioner of walking that fine line was a syndicated columnist who wrote a column entitled “Things Found on the Way to Other Things.” His column appeared in the Saturday edition of the Wisconsin State Journal back in the 1980 and 1990s. Factoids then, today they’re referred to as nuggets or Easter Eggs. Regardless of time or terminology, they’ purvey the context or back ground of an interesting tidbit of information.
Things Found: A Shaggy Dog Story
That is what we have here. Originally, this blog post intended to deal with stressed individuals’ growing use of AI and Chatbots instead of human professionals for emotional and psychiatric treatment. (More on that below). However, in the process of developing that narrative, one thing became quite apparent. Despite my previous blog on the related topic of the mental health of family caregivers, I possessed little expertise on the merits or pitfalls of psychiatric Chatbot treatment.
Consequently, this shortcoming forced me to expand the scope of my topic and the research attending it. Being a writer and published author prompted me to approach the topic from a viewpoint more in keeping with my vocational ballpark. Numerous novles and short stories come to mind that depict unreliable or delusional narrators. Edgar Allan Poe‘s “The Telltale Heart” and Henry James‘ “The Turn of the Screw” are two famiiar examples. In fact, the caareers of such gothic horror novelists as William Faulkner, Flannery O’Connor, or Steven King wouldn’t have existed without their mentally disturbed protagonists.
Enter Fyodor Dostoevsky
Yet, whatever the brilliance of Faukner’s Quentin Compson or King’s Carrie White characterizations, their fictional progenitor has to be Rodion Raskolnikov in Feodor Dostoevsky‘s Crime and Punishment. Published in 1866, it depicts the killing, retribution, and redemption of an impovershed law student who seeks to justify his hubris by proving he is as “exceptional” as Napoleon Bonaparte was a half century before.
As it turns out, he is not. Rather than having the strength of will he admires in his idol, he suffers from the weakness of conscience, of humanity, in committing such an ignoble act regardless how deserving or corrupt his victim. Since that time, many anti-social personages, famous and ignominous, have sought to distinguish themselves and justify their cruelty and inhumanity in a similar way. Unlike Raskolnikov, none of his successors achieved redemption.
So What?
At this point, you might wonder what this plunge into things found amongst the weeds of literary history has to do with psychiatric chatbots and AI. Well, hang on. We must dig deeper before all becomes clear. One interesting sidelight about Dostoevsky’s creation is his protagonist’s last name. It derives from the Russian term for schismatic, a reference to a member of the Old Believer movement of the early 18th century in Russia.
Though the term suggests a breaking away or splintering from the religious norm, it also reflects the traditional values of the anti-reform dissenters. These people rebelled against Tsar Alexey‘s blending of the traditional Russian Orthodox Church with its Greek Orthodox counterpart. After years of persecution under czarist and communist authorities, the Old Believers’ strict morals and rejection of all things western now enjoy a renaissance throughout Russia and beyond in the 21st century.
Things Found: The Upshot
The historical relevance of this literary correlation now seems more applicable. As in 17th-century Russia, the adoption of new ways of thinking and acting are seldom affable. In times of great cultural upheaval such as ours, adherence or reversion to the old ways is an inevitable expression of conscience for some. For others, it justifies the cruelty and persecution meted out to those who differ from themselves, whether culturally, ethnically, or intellectually.
It is an old game. Pundits and politicians take advantage of change for their own ends. Professional research indicates that AI and ChatGPT are no match for the caring and concerned treatment of the metally disturbed by a trained, human professional. The trenchant issue is a matter of appropriations and values. Because psychological AI has advised one patient to murder his parents, should that single diagnosis invalidate all AI psychological advising, particularly where there is a lack of funding or staffing? Doesn’t this also mean we should reexamine our priorities regarding these considerations?
Weighty concerns. While you consider them, recall your own reading habits. Particularly you boomers: think back on the Saturday section of your newspaper if you received one. Do any of you remember the syndicated column mentioned at the beginning of this blog? If so, identify the columnist in the Leave a Reply section below. I’d love to hear from you.