Should AI Insights Be Shared With Consumers?

Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, a psychology professor at University College London, argues In a column for Harvard Business Review that while artificial intelligence (AI) technology is helping brands understand their customers better, it can also help customers understand themselves better.

“Your choice of music reveals the degree to which you are extraverted, curious, and neurotic; your choice of movies reveals the degree to which you are intelligent, conscientious, and agreeable; your Facebook data reveals whether you are conservative or liberal, sociable or introverted, optimistic or pessimistic; your tweets reveal whether you are narcissistic or not, and so on,” he writes.

Prof. Chamorro-Premuzic posits that AI could be used to discover, interpret and share these patterns. The algorithmic insights, he adds, can offer “granular and personalized” reads into preferences and personality traits in real time to help individuals “become more self-aware.”

“Just as wearables can translate physiological signals into actionable feedback on our fitness, energy, sleepiness, or stress levels, AI could detect changing patterns to our habits to alert us about increases in negative or positive affect, curiosity, or aggression,” he writes.

AI’s potential for therapy – at least as a complementary tool – is being increasingly examined, particularly given the financial and logistical barriers facing human-centered treatment.

In the UK, an AI chatbot, Limbic Access, was recently approved for medical use. It promises to predict mental health disorders with 93 percent accuracy.

A recent NPR article stated, “Advances in artificial intelligence — such as ChatGPT — are increasingly being looked to as a way to help screen for, or support, people who are dealing with isolation, or mild depression or anxiety. Human emotions are tracked, analyzed and responded to, using machine learning that tries to monitor a patient’s mood, or mimic a human therapist’s interactions with a patient.”

Prof. Chamorro-Premuzic said brands sharing AI-driven insights into their consumers’ personalities could help overcome the “creepy” feeling that comes with personalized targeting. He wrote, “Brands will enhance their ethical reputation and trustworthiness if they share this understanding with consumers, persuading them that there is no conflict between knowing them well, and helping them know themselves well, when done in an ethical and transparent way.”

• Should You Share AI-Driven Customer Insights with Your Customers? - Harvard Business Review

• Can A.I. Treat Mental Illness? - The New Yorker

• How Artificial Intelligence Could Change Psychotherapy - Psychology Today

• Talk to the bot: AI assistant marks breakthrough for UK mental health - Medical Device Network

• We keep trying to make AI therapists. It’s not working. - The Washington Post

• Therapy by chatbot? The promise and challenges in using AI for mental health - NPR