He read books, spoke to psychologists and even recorded appointments. Can the Portuguese AI psychologist replace an appointment? Those responsible believe it is a complement.
The Portuguese platform specializes in online services related to mental health. Now, it goes further and is creating a true “virtual psychologist”, made with AI, trained to give psychology consultations for free.
The goal is for Roomie, as they called the chatbot that has been developed since 2022, it can “act as a psychologist with an average of 10 years of career and with experience in approaches such as psychoanalysis, cognitive behavioral, systemic, family or rogerian therapy. ”
As a base, the program will have an extensive bibliography, but also conversations with real psychologists and even recordings of more than 50 real psychotherapy consultations, so that Roomie knows how to act “humanly” with clients.
The testing phase has already started and the more than 100 patients who are experiencing the chatbot “They are already using it spontaneously, for example to know more about any topic they may have approached in the consultation, to arrange some therapeutic exercise or simply to talk,” says the company’s director, Francisco Valente Gonçalves.
“We found that there were no significant differences” between the responses of the chatbot And those of a psychologist for questions such as “how I can reduce my anxiety” or “how I deal with a narcissist,” he explains.
The goal is Provide the platform for free by the end of the year to all Portuguese. “Today it takes € 200 or € 300 to make weekly psychology consultations. If someone has no capacity for it, they can do some work with ‘Roomie’ and only have a monthly consultation with a psychologist, ”explains the person responsible for the project, who stresses, however, that this chatbot should not replace psychotherapy.
But the project also has some risks. For more serious cases, such as psychosis or bipolarity, for example, Roomie It has no “formation”admits the director of the company.
But the company does not let itself be overthrown for this obstacle: now, it wants to establish a partnership with a psychiatric hospital and test the technology in its patients.
Francisco Valente Gonçalves does not believe that AI can replace psychologists. “There are people who have this fear, out of ignorance or ignorance, but that makes no sense,” he says, “the human relationship, which is the heart of psychotherapy.” But admits that it can become a niche service.
