You’ve probably heard of AI psychosis. Well, now get ready for AI psychiatrists — with prescription pads.
A San Francisco startup called Legion Health has been approved to let its AI app prescribe psychiatric medications to patients in Utah
As The Verge reports, there are efforts to keep the idea from becoming the disaster that it sounds like. The chatbot can only renew prescriptions for a specific set of medications, including fluoxetine (Prozac), sertraline (Zoloft), and other substances used to treat anxiety and depression. It can only prescribe drugs that were previously prescribed by a human psychiatrist, and patients will also need to be stable and not have been hospitalized for a psychiatric condition in the last year.
Despite those considerable carve-outs, experts are warning the system may do little to improve access to those who need care the most — while cracking the door to an ominous era for medicine.
University of Utah School of Medicine psychiatrist Brent Kious told The Verge that automating the process could contribute to an “epidemic of over-treatment” in psychiatry. The medications should “require more active management, changes, and careful consideration,” as Harvard Medical School director of digital psychiatry John Torous added.
The experts also cautioned that the chatbots may gloss over important details or not realize that a patient was answering questions inaccurately on purpose to speed up care. Human clinicians still have the advantage of being able to read between the lines and realize when patients are being misleading or intentionally obtuse.
“It would be better if there were greater transparency, more science, and more rigorous testing before people are asked to use this,” Kious told The Verge.
The rollout of Legion Health’s tool is Utah’s second foray into automating healthcare using AI chatbots. An initial pilot of a model in December, dubbed Doctronic, turned out to be a major point of contention, with cybersecurity researchers finding that it could be easily coaxed into spreading conspiracy theories about vaccines, recommending meth as a treatment for social withdrawal, and tripling a patient’s suggested dosage of Oxycontin.
Meanwhile, Legion Health claims it’s playing it safe with its latest AI chatbot, agreeing to file monthly reports to Utah regulators and physicians for review. The company also says it will closely involve pharmacists in the renewal of prescriptions.
“We see this as critical to expand access to hundreds of thousands of people in Utah who live in mental health shortage areas, as well as an important proving ground for AI in medicine,” Legion cofounder and president Arthur MacWaters told The Verge.
The company is hoping to roll out its refill chatbot “nationwide” before the end of this year.
Torous, however, advised patients to stay away and continue seeking the advice of a human clinician instead.
More on healthcare chatbots: Therapists Go on Strike, Saying They’re Being Replaced by AI
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