麻豆传媒

Why did you leave the National Institute of Mental Health to work for Google?
I have to confess that after giving heart and soul to mental-health problems over the last 13 years working in government, I have not seen any improvement for either morbidity or mortality for serious mental illness 鈥� so I鈥檓 ready to try a different approach. If it means using the tools available in the private sector, let鈥檚 go for it.

Are you saying Google is a better place to do mental-health research than the NIMH?
I wouldn鈥檛 quite put it that way, but I don鈥檛 think complicated problems like early detection of psychosis or finding ways to get more people with depression into optimal care are ever going to be solved solely by government or the private sector, or through philanthropy. Five years ago, the NIMH launched a . But did we have the analytical firepower to do that? No. If anybody has it, companies like IBM, Apple or Google do 鈥� those kinds of high-powered tech engines.

Will your new mental-health project mine Google鈥檚 vast coffers of user data, the way Facebook does experiments on its users?
Probably not. I think there are such concerns around privacy and personal information that that would not be the place to start.

How can technology help find ways to end mental illness?
It can tell us things that are not obvious from our own eyes and ears. We can now think about using deep learning or intensive data analytics to study behaviour and cognition in a far more objective and precise way. Developing algorithms to decode early changes in speech could help us create devices to identify the early onset of schizophrenia. For example, a group at IBM used speech analytics to identify the first signs of psychosis. The team used machine learning algorithms to identify a particular pattern in the way words were connected. This subtlety hadn鈥檛 been picked up by clinicians.

If you could talk to your younger self 15 years ago, how would you feel about Google and IBM carrying out mental-health research?
Even 15 months ago I wouldn鈥檛 have imagined that we鈥檇 be having this conversation. Until very recently, the ecosystem was government funding and private-sector funding. 鈥淧rivate-sector funding鈥� largely meant pharmaceutical companies. But today we鈥檙e in a very different world. Public-sector funding has mostly been stagnant for the last decade. Now the private sector is expanding in some unexpected ways.

Will you have access to Google鈥檚 big wallet?
I鈥檓 wondering that myself.

How did your colleagues at NIMH react to the news that you were leaving?
I gathered that there was a Twitter feed trending on the hashtag #takemewithyoutom.

(Image: AP Photo/Cliff Owen)

For more on the use of technology in mental health, see 鈥�Can mental health apps replace human therapists?鈥�

This article appeared in print under the headline 鈥淕oogle鈥檚 mind mission鈥�