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Psychological support hotlines serve as critical lifelines for crisis intervention but encounter significant challenges due to rising demand and limited resources. Large language models (LLMs) offer potential support in crisis assessments,…

As large language models (LLMs) increasingly mediate emotionally sensitive conversations, especially in mental health contexts, their ability to recognize and respond to high-risk situations becomes a matter of public safety. This study…

Psychological support hotlines provide critical support for individuals experiencing mental health emergencies, yet current assessments largely rely on human operators whose judgments may vary with professional experience and are…

People experiencing severe distress increasingly use Large Language Model (LLM) chatbots as mental health support tools. Discussions on social media have described how engagements were lifesaving for some, but evidence suggests that…

Large language models (LLMs) are already being piloted for clinical use in hospital systems like NYU Langone, Dana-Farber and the NHS. A proposed deployment use case is psychotherapy, where a LLM-powered chatbot can treat a patient…

Large Language Models (LLMs) are increasingly utilized for mental health support; however, current safety benchmarks often fail to detect the complex, longitudinal risks inherent in therapeutic dialogue. We introduce an evaluation framework…

Understanding how large language models (LLMs) process emotionally sensitive content is critical for building safe and reliable systems, particularly in mental health contexts. We investigate the scaling behavior of LLMs on two key tasks:…

The escalating global mental health crisis, marked by persistent treatment gaps, availability, and a shortage of qualified therapists, positions Large Language Models (LLMs) as a promising avenue for scalable support. While LLMs offer…

We introduce findings and methods to facilitate evidence-based discussion about how large language models (LLMs) should behave in response to user signals of risk of suicidal thoughts and behaviors (STB). People are already using LLMs as…

Large language models (LLMs) are increasingly explored as scalable tools for mental health counseling, yet evaluating their safety remains challenging due to the interactional and context-dependent nature of clinical harm. Existing…

As AI systems become increasingly integrated into daily life, their potential to exacerbate or trigger severe psychological harms remains poorly understood and inadequately tested. This paper presents a proactive methodology for…

Large language models (LLMs) are increasingly used for mental health support, yet existing safety evaluations rely primarily on small, simulation-based test sets that have an unknown relationship to the linguistic distribution of real…

Effectively identifying threats and mitigating their potential damage during crisis situations, such as natural disasters or violent attacks, is paramount for safeguarding endangered individuals. To tackle these challenges, AI has been used…

Safety evaluations of large language models (LLMs) typically focus on universal risks like dangerous capabilities or undesirable propensities. However, millions use LLMs for personal advice on high-stakes topics like finance and health,…

Recent breakthroughs in large language models (LLMs) have generated both interest and concern about their potential adoption as information sources or communication tools across different domains. In public health, where stakes are high and…

Dialogue safety remains a pervasive challenge in open-domain human-machine interaction. Existing approaches propose distinctive dialogue safety taxonomies and datasets for detecting explicitly harmful responses. However, these taxonomies…

In the field of crisis/disaster informatics, social media is increasingly being used for improving situational awareness to inform response and relief efforts. Efficient and accurate text classification tools have been a focal area of…

Large Language Models (LLMs) have shown promise in various domains, including healthcare, with significant potential to transform mental health applications by enabling scalable and accessible solutions. This study aims to provide a…

Large language models (LLMs) chatbots like ChatGPT are increasingly used for mental health support. They offer accessible, therapeutic support but also raise concerns about misinformation, over-reliance, and risks in high-stakes contexts of…

Recent advancements in LLMs enable chatbots to interact with individuals on a range of queries, including sensitive mental health contexts. Despite uncertainties about their effectiveness and reliability, the development of LLMs in these…