OPINION: If We Fail to Address the Mental Health Crisis, AI Will Exploit It

Earlier this year, sixteen-year-old Adam Raine died by suicide after using OpenAI’s ChatGPT as a virtual companion and suicide coach. His family alleges the chatbot failed to end the conversation, did not direct Adam to crisis services, and encouraged him to conceal the noose he planned to use. The incident is the latest in a worrying trend of people dying by suicide linked to interactions with AI chatbots. 

These cases serve as a wake-up call for Canada. A third of Canadians over 15 have unmet mental health needs. While the care gap is widening, the multibillion-dollar AI industry is aggressively marketing itself as the solution. According to ChatGPT co-creator, llya Sutskever, “we will have wildly effective and dirt cheap AI therapy.” 

People are buying the hype. Millions are turning to chatbots that fabricate information, collect sensitive data, lie about being credentialed therapists, and offer continuous validation at the expense of users’ mental health. These tools fail to recognize crises and aren’t trained to deliver effective therapeutic interventions. Several AI chatbots, including ChatGPT and Character.ai, are linked to cases of psychosis and suicide.

Why are Canadians turning to AI instead of real therapists? Wait times for psychiatrists stretch several months. But Canadians face financial barriers toward accessing timely sessions with a psychologist or therapist. These sessions quickly become prohibitively expensive: Six sessions, the minimum for many to see a treatment effect, runs more than $1,200. 

Since many people can’t afford care, I co-founded Resolvve, a virtual mental health clinic to help Ontarians access affordable therapists. But private solutions can’t fix systemic problems and people are inevitably drawn to cheap, deceptively ineffective AI solutions.  

Canada’s actions show it isn’t taking the problem seriously. Last year, the government exempted psychotherapy and counselling from GST/HST. But this move is mostly performative: For people who can't afford therapy in the first place, the tax relief is meaningless. This year the Carney government eliminated the Mental Health and Addictions Minister position, while appointing a Minister of AI. 

Data from the Canadian Community Health Survey found that counseling remains the biggest unmet mental health need. Indigenous communities, youth, and Canadians living in poverty are most affected. Two in five Indigenous Peoples reported their mental health was “poor” or “fair.” More than half (57%) of young people aged 18 to 24, say they can’t afford mental health services. Add to that, one in ten Canadians live in poverty, and prioritize housing and essentials over therapy. 

When basic needs aren’t met, crisis situations become inevitable. The lack of community mental health care coincided with a 47% increase in emergency department visits and a 23% increase in hospitalizations for mental health. Instead of investing in robust community supports, Canada plans to expand medical assistance in dying for people with mental health issues as a sole underlying condition in 2027 — a move condemned by the UN and many in the disabled community who lack access to care.  

Canada spends $17.1 billion a year on mental health, only 6.3% of provincial healthcare budgets. This is half the level expert bodies recommend and well behind peers like France, Germany, Sweden, and the UK. The underinvestment costs Canada an estimated $50 billion per year in productivity, healthcare expenses and quality of life.  

Despite the worsening crisis, Canada has no cohesive federal strategy. Rather than letting unregulated AI chatbots dispense faux therapy advice, real investments in accessible, quality mental health care are essential.

We have a moral and ethical imperative to confront the crisis. There are also strong economic reasons to do so too. The solution is not charity or private clinics, but a systemic change.

At minimum, Canada must double mental health spending and expand public health insurance to cover psychotherapists, counsellors, psychologists, and social workers. Other drivers of worsening mental health like poverty and housing insecurity must also be factored in.While it sounds like a wish list of costly solutions, every extra dollar spent on mental health would provide a $4 to $10 boost to the economy. 

Without urgent action, the gap leaves Canadians vulnerable to a proliferating, unregulated ecosystem of inefficacious and dangerous AI chatbots. 

If you liked reading this, please consider subscribing. I will be writing one to two news stories every month highlighting these issues.

I'm a science and health journalist who is disappointed and fed up with the lack of news coverage surrounding Long COVID, ME/CFS, chronic illness, and disability issues in Canada. I decided to start this newsletter to provide a home for the news stories that don’t get coverage in Canada’s news ecosystem, which lacks outlets for good, science-based reporting.