AI assistant for your mental health - Wysa

Hello there, 

One area where we have made 10X progress over the last few years is mental health. With every passing year, awareness and acceptance of caring for your mental health is increasing and that's a positive sign. This week, I will be talking about some products that are making this change possible. 

Today's Cool Product -Wysa

Wysa is an AI safe space where instead of talking to another human being, you are anonymously guided by an “AI penguin” which listens to you empathetically and allows you to depersonalise your stress. Over the past 7 years, Wysa was part of 485 Mn conversations from 3.5 Mn users across 65 Countries. 

I've seen chatbots of good companies that don't understand basic commands, leaving me irritated. I was scared when I first heard the idea of AI assisting with a problem as sensitive as mental health, where leaving users more annoyed or irritated is not an option. Wysa pleasantly surprised me with its thoughtful questions and more importantly being an empathetic listener no matter which language I speak in. 

Wysa evolved from being just a chatbot to offering guided practice on several mental health issues and allowing us to contact a therapist directly from the app. These additional features, however, do not come free. 

Today's Great Read -Value Beyond Instrumentalization

This week, I will share articles around ethics in building tech products. While there's no doubt that Technological advancements over the last few hundred years have enhanced the quality of life significantly, it came at a cost that we willingly didn't sign up for (e.g., global warming).  In this article, Jasmine Wang shares her ideas on how we reached here and how can technologists be more mindful in building products that have huge implications to the society. 

This glorification of action over thought is reflected in Silicon Valley's culture and canonical texts. Books like Zero to One or essays like It's Time to Build emphasize the urgent need to create, innovate, hack, and iterate on products with vast social consequences, rather than the responsibility of technologists to pause, reflect, and introspect before doing so. To slow down is to end up default dead; the rhythm and pace of how technology is supposed to be built does not allow for consideration of social consequences. The pattern is repeated at an individual level: ethical thought and decision-making is believed to only be possible after one achieves financial freedom.

Founders are constantly asked to envision the path to a world where they’re massively successful. I propose, then, a revision of Kant’s imperative for technologists: do not work on something if you yourself do not want to live in the world where you are massively successful. 

Jasmine Wang

It's been one week since I started this newsletter and I have received several positive comments from the readers. Thank you for your encouragement!