Will artificial intelligence eventually replace psychiatrists?

Journal: The British journal of psychiatry : the journal of mental science
Published Date: Mar 1, 2021

Abstract

The dystopian scenario of an 'artificial intelligence takeover' imagines artificial intelligence (AI) becoming the dominant form of intelligence on Earth, rendering humans redundant. As a society we have become increasingly familiar with AI and robots replacing humans in many tasks, certain jobs and even some areas of medicine, but surely this is not the fate of psychiatry?Here a computational neuroscientist (Janaina Mourão-Miranda) and psychiatrist (Justin Taylor Baker) suggest that psychiatry as a profession is relatively safe, whereas psychiatrists Christian Brown and Giles William Story predict that robots will be taking over the asylum.

Authors

  • Christian Brown
    Higher Trainee in Forensic Psychiatry, South West London and St George's Mental Health NHS Trust, UK.
  • Giles William Story
    Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Max Planck UCL Centre for Computational Psychiatry and Ageing, University College London; and Higher Trainee in General Psychiatry, Camden and Islington NHS Foundation Trust, UK.
  • Janaina Mourão-Miranda
    Centre for Medical Image Computing, Department of Computer Science, University College London, London, United Kingdom; Max Planck University College London Centre for Computational Psychiatry and Ageing Research, University College London, London, United Kingdom.
  • Justin Taylor Baker
    Scientific Director, Institute for Technology in Psychiatry, McLean Hospital, Massachusetts; and Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School, Massachusetts, USA.

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