By MIKE MAGEE
When OpenAI decided to respond to customers requesting voice-mediated interactions in GPT Chat, CEO Sam Altman went all in. That’s because they know this is more than a competitive advantage or convenience. It’s about relationships – deep, strong, loyal and committed relationships.
They also know that the share of behavioral health in telemedicine mediated care will increase from 1% in 2019 to 33% in 2022. And that the pandemic has led to an explosion of virtual mental health services. In one year, between 2020 and 2021, psychologists offering personal and virtual sessions increased from 30% to 50%. Why? The American Psychological Association recommends that verbal communication be private, confidential, efficient and effective. Or in one word – useful.
As Forbes reported in 2021, “Celebrity endorsements, like Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps’ campaign with virtual therapy startup Talkspace, are beginning to break down long-standing stigmas, while mindfulness apps like Calm offer meditation sessions at the push of a button. But the Covid-19 pandemic and its fallout collective psychology that ultimately creates mental health. As evidence, he notes that funding for mental health startups has increased more than fivefold in the previous four years.
Altman also traces history. The first “mass medium” technology in the US was voice-activated – radio. He also understood the growth trajectory of the past century. From its presence in 1% of households in 1923, it became a fixture in 3/4 of all US homes just 14 years later.
Altman could also see the writing on the wall. The next generation, which is slowly encouraging Biden off the stage, is quiet and connected.
Nielson and Edison Research recently reported that the average adult in the US now spends four hours a day consuming audio and related advertising. 67% of that listening is on radio, 20% on podcasts, 10% on music streaming and 3% on satellite radio.
Post-pandemic, the young generation’s use of online audio has skyrocketed. In 2005, only 15% of young adults listened online. By 2023, it will reach 75%. And while listening increases, the rate of loneliness among young adults has dropped from 38% in 2020 to 24% today.
A decade earlier, screenwriter Spike Jonze ventured into this territory when writing they. Well done, the film features Joaquin Phoenix as the quiet, introverted Theodore Twombly, reeling from an impending divorce. Desperately, he develops more than a relationship (friendship really) with an empathetic female AI, voiced by actress Scarlett Johansson.
Scarlett’s performance is so convincing that it catapults they is in contention for 5 academy award winning Best Original Screenplay. It also seemed to impress Sam Altman, who, a decade later, approached Scarlett to become the “voice” of ChatGPT’s virtual lead. He refused, seeing the potential downsides of being a virtual being. He then identified a voice actor “like Scarlett” and chose “Sky” as one of the five voice options to load ChatGPT. Under the threat of a massive intellectual property challenge, Altman recently “killed” Sky, but four other virtual friends (out of 400 auditions) have survived.
For content so that “what you say” is also shown as “how you say it,” companies like Google have it covered. The LLM (Large Language Model) product is trained on content from more than 10 million websites, including HealthCommentary.org. Google engineer Blaise Aguera y Arcas said “Artificial neural networks make a step towards consciousness.”
Where all this ends for humanity remains an open question. What they know is that the antidote to loneliness and isolation is connection. But of what kind? Who knows? Oxford Evolutionary Psychologist Robin Dunbar believes so.
Altman may have taken note of this review by Atlantic writer Sheon Han in 2021: “Robin Dunbar is best known for his ‘Dunbar number,’ which is defined as the number of stable relationships that can be cognitively achieved. (The proposed number is 150.) But after spent a decades-long career studying the complexities of friendship, he discovered that more numbers formed close relationships. For example, Dunbar’s numbers became less like absolute numerical thresholds than a series of concentric circles, each standing for a qualitatively different type of relationship. .book, Friends: Understanding the Power of Our Most Important Relationships.
But what most experts now agree on is that it sounds like unlocking. Shorthand for Altman: Choose the right vote and you can only trigger an additional 149 “friends” for each “buyer” of ChatGPT.
Mike Magee MD is a Medical Historian and regular contributor to THCB. He is a writer CODE BLUE: Inside America’s Medical Industrial Complex.(Grove/2020)
