The use of algorithmic technology in mental health initiatives is rapidly expanding. Some commentators claim AI can address the global 'mental health treatment gap’ by augmenting existing care and helping to overcome resource shortages and geographical constraints. Others warn of a rising 'digital asylum' which places distressed people under various forms of bio-surveillance and social control. This discussion will foreground the perspective of people with lived experience of distress, trauma, disability, mental health service use and survival who have advocated and agitated for more humane responses to people in distress. A panel will engage the audience to discuss what algorithmic systems and online platforms can – and maybe cannot – do to promote wellbeing in communities. This task is made more urgent by COVID-19, which has accelerated the digitization and virtualization of health and social services worldwide, as well as informal networks for mutual aid and community connection.
If 30 participants attend, we will arrange breakout rooms that are facilitated by the discussants. If three attend, we will have an informal group discussion all together.
What is the goal and/or outcome of your session?:The primary goal is to raise the issue, as the politics of algorithmic tech in the mental health context is grossly under-explored. The second goal is to build the capacity of discussants to engage with the issues. Part of this is to draw on the knowledge of two social movements: the first, the movement for a healthy internet and digital rights, and the second, the advocacy and activism in the mental health and disability justice context. We hope that participants in the discussion leave with a sense of where they might join future advocacy efforts, or contribute to technological development, with nuance that goes well beyond a simplistic binary of 'good or bad'.
We're hoping that many efforts and discussions will continue after Mozfest. Share any ideas you already have for how to continue the work from your session.:The discussants are part of a group that has emerged from a Mozilla Fellowship, and this is their first effort to speak publicly as a group. We hope this is the first of many public discussions, and that discussants are challenged and informed by feedback from participants in the discussion who we haven't met but who ideally come from diverse backgrounds--professionally, culturally, geographically, and so on. Several of us are commonly called upon as lived experience experts for the development of AI in this area, and all of us are strongly concerned with data harms in mental health and disability contexts. Any knowledge gained from the session is likely to inform these and other efforts in advocacy and knowledge production.
Dr Piers Gooding is a former Mozilla Fellow (2020), and is currently a Research Fellow at the Melbourne Social Equity Institute and the University of Melbourne Law School.
Keris Jän Myrick is co-director of Mental Health Strategic Impact Initiative (S2I); Clinical Advisor- Harvard BDIMC Digital Psychiatry Program; member the American Psychiatric Association’s App Advisor Expert Panel.