Mental Health in the Age of AI with Dr. Ally Hicks
Dr. Allycin Powell-Hicks is a psycho futurist and clinical psychologist with a passion for exploring how technology shapes our mental wellbeing. In this episode, we dive into the nuanced relationship between AI and mental health, unpacking both its promise for expanding access to care and the challenges around empathy, bias, and privacy. Lana and Aisha of THE AI CHICKS get real about the rise of AI-driven beauty standards, the impact of filters on self-image, and how social media is reframing our emotional journeys. Together the conversation breaks down why the future of mental health tech will be collaborative, hybrid, and multimodal—and why human nuance will always matter most.
Show Notes
EPISODE COVERS:
00:00 AI Struggles with Emotional Nuance
04:23 "AI-Assisted Mental Health Insights"
07:25 Future of AI in Mental Health
09:59 ChatGPT Evolution and Hybrid AI
13:36 "Enhancing Telehealth with Biofeedback"
18:11 Children's Online Lives Shaping Future
22:56 "Instagram Face: Homogenized Beauty"
23:41 Objectification and Self-Perception
27:36 "Soft Humans, Rigid AI"
TIMELINE:
1. AI’s potential impact on mental health
2. Nuance challenges for AI understanding emotions
3. Human vs. AI in emotional detection
4. Hybrid AI-human approaches in healthcare
5. Tech innovation outpacing real-world application
6. LLMs as unexpected support for emotions
7. AI models lacking intent for mental health
8. Accessibility to clinicians and AI’s role
9. Collaboration between AI engineers and psychologists
10. AI sentiment analysis and emotional prediction
11. Telehealth and wearables for mental health
12. AI supplementing—not replacing—human therapists
13. Concerns with privacy and sensitive data
14. AI-driven beauty standards and bias
15. Filter culture affecting self-perception and surgery
AI and mental health, psycho futurist, clinical psychology, life coaching, beauty standards, mental health expert, AI chatbots, therapy apps, emotional nuance, EQ vs IQ, sentiment analysis, depression detection, hybrid care models, telehealth, prompt engineering, guardrails in AI, social media impact, digital wellbeing, emotional analysis, data bias, AI-generated images, beauty objectification, comparison culture, self-esteem, Dove campaigns, multimodal AI, generational differences, access to mental health resources, avatar therapy, ethical AI, body image