How this AI-based chatbot may help prevent suicides

NEW DELHI: The All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) and Indian-American author and integrative medicine pioneer Dr Deepak Chopra plan to start an artificial intelligence or AI-based chatbot to aid in mental health and suicide prevention that uses GAD/PHQ9 to assess depression/anxiety and provide interventions to save lives.

The GAD/PHQ9 is a assessment scale for general anxiety disorder and patient health that is commonly used by mental health experts.

The AI-based chatbot would be developed in various Indian languages to help people all over the country.

AIIMS director Professor M Srinivas signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Chopra Foundation on Tuesday in the presence of its founder Dr Deepak Chopra.

Dr Chopra told TOI: "We have created a global campaign, called Never Alone, and have prevented 6,000 suicides through interventions and exchange of 20 million text messages. We are trying to put it up in Arabic and Farsi and in regional languages for the first time."

Initially, the focus of the programme will be on "emotional support" with non-pharmacological interventions. "Never Alone is based on the conviction that every person in the world deserves these four things - attention (deep listening), affection (deep caring), appreciation (you are unique), and acceptance (sense of safety) and we will work on it with Dr Nand Kumar, professor of psychiatry in charge of the Centre for Advance Research and Excellence for Neuromodulation at AIIMS.

Dr Chopra said that machine learning and real-time intervention will work along with counselling and psychiatry. "Once risk is detected, we need a human being, as AI is not at this stage where human interaction can be eliminated," he said.

"Since different parts of the world have different cultural factors, it should always be culturally adapted," Dr Chopra said.