A Novel Cognitive Behavioral Therapy–Based Generative AI Tool (Socrates 2.0) to Facilitate Socratic Dialogue: Protocol for a Mixed Methods Feasibility Study
Bibliographic record
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Digital mental health tools, designed to augment traditional mental health treatments, are becoming increasingly important due to a wide range of barriers to accessing mental health care, including a growing shortage of clinicians. Most existing tools use rule-based algorithms, often leading to interactions that feel unnatural compared with human therapists. Large language models (LLMs) offer a solution for the development of more natural, engaging digital tools. In this paper, we detail the development of Socrates 2.0, which was designed to engage users in Socratic dialogue surrounding unrealistic or unhelpful beliefs, a core technique in cognitive behavioral therapies. The multiagent LLM-based tool features an artificial intelligence (AI) therapist, Socrates, which receives automated feedback from an AI supervisor and an AI rater. The combination of multiple agents appeared to help address common LLM issues such as looping, and it improved the overall dialogue experience. Initial user feedback from individuals with lived experiences of mental health problems as well as cognitive behavioral therapists has been positive. Moreover, tests in approximately 500 scenarios showed that Socrates 2.0 engaged in harmful responses in under 1% of cases, with the AI supervisor promptly correcting the dialogue each time. However, formal feasibility studies with potential end users are needed. OBJECTIVE: This mixed methods study examines the feasibility of Socrates 2.0. METHODS: On the basis of the initial data, we devised a formal feasibility study of Socrates 2.0 to gather qualitative and quantitative data about users' and clinicians' experience of interacting with the tool. Using a mixed method approach, the goal is to gather feasibility and acceptability data from 100 users and 50 clinicians to inform the eventual implementation of generative AI tools, such as Socrates 2.0, in mental health treatment. We designed this study to better understand how users and clinicians interact with the tool, including the frequency, length, and time of interactions, users' satisfaction with the tool overall, quality of each dialogue and individual responses, as well as ways in which the tool should be improved before it is used in efficacy trials. Descriptive and inferential analyses will be performed on data from validated usability measures. Thematic analysis will be performed on the qualitative data. RESULTS: Recruitment will begin in February 2024 and is expected to conclude by February 2025. As of September 25, 2024, overall, 55 participants have been recruited. CONCLUSIONS: The development of Socrates 2.0 and the outlined feasibility study are important first steps in applying generative AI to mental health treatment delivery and lay the foundation for formal feasibility studies. INTERNATIONAL REGISTERED REPORT IDENTIFIER (IRRID): DERR1-10.2196/58195.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.007 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one teacher head, not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".