In the film Her, Theodore Twombly (Joaquin Phoenix) is a lonely man who falls in love with his computer. Actually, not his computer, but a software program developed using (AI) technology. The plot is clearly science-fiction, but is it such a stretch of the imagination that someone could be helped through a difficult time by a computer? Are scientists on the verge of developing an AI algorithm to treat and ? I believe that AI will play an important role in the future of , but not in the way that Hollywood blockbusters would have you believe.

The AI featured in sci-fi films is markedly different from the practical AI algorithms being developed by today’s researchers. I am reminded of the following quote from the philosopher Daniel Dennett :

Real magic, in other words, refers to the magic that is not real, while the magic that is real, that can actually be done, is not real magic.

A similar sentiment can be applied to artificial : real AI, software that is truly intelligent, doesn’t exist yet, while the AI that is real, and is being used every day, isn’t very intelligent.

A natural starting point is to advance the current “one size fits all” paradigm. Computerized therapy systems will become more personalized, building detailed models of the user’s idiosyncratic mental profile. This will be interfaced with carefully curated databases of clinical knowledge, and machine learning algorithms will recommend a treatment strategy.

Exciting breakthroughs are on the horizon for AI in psychology, but they will be in the form of increasingly sophisticated computerized therapy systems, not increasingly sophisticated computerized therapists. Fortunately, we won’t have to worry about patients falling in love with their computer – at least for now.

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Fjola Helgadottir, PhD, is a senior research clinician at the University of Oxford and co-founder of AI-Therapy, a developer of fully automated online treatment programs. Follow her on twitter @drfjola.