How AI Can Help Fix Our Brains

TL;DR: Today we’re releasing a new episode of our podcast AI & I. Dan Shipper goes in depth with Awais Aftab, psychiatrist, professor, and writer. Watch on X or YouTube, or listen on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. Here’s a link to the episode transcript.

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The same rigid thinking that held AI back for years is failing millions with mental health conditions—but AI’s progress offers a radical solution.

For years, computer scientists tried to teach machines using fixed rules, but that approach crumbled against the messy reality of the real world. Psychiatry faces the same trap today, forcing the infinite variations of human suffering into neat diagnostic boxes—reducing someone's unique experience of depression or anxiety to items on a checklist.

AI's breakthrough came from embracing deep learning—letting computers discover their own patterns from examples, rather than forcing predetermined rules. Now that same approach could transform mental health care: AI systems that recognize how symptoms cluster differently in each person and catch disorders before they fully develop.