Real concerns, artificial intelligence: Reality testing for psychiatrists

The use of augmented or artificial intelligence (AI) in healthcare promises groundbreaking advancements, from increasing diagnostic accuracy and minimizing clinical errors to personalized treatment plans and automated clinical decision-making. Its use may allow us to transition from phenomenological categories of psychiatric illness to one driven by underlying etiology and realize the Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) model proposed by the (U.S.) National Institutes of Mental Health (NIMH), which today remains difficult to apply clinically and is accessible primarily to researchers. AI may facilitate the transition to a more syncretic framework of understanding psychiatric illness that accounts for disruptions, all the way from the cellular level to the level of social systems. Yet, despite immense possibilities, there are also associated risks. In this article, we explore the challenges and opportunities associated with the use of AI in psychiatry, focusing on the potential ethical and health equity considerations in vulnerable populations, especially in child and adolescent psychiatry.