I'm excited to finally share what I've been working on post-Casper!
We’re excited to announce that we’re creating the first AI mental health research lab and training the first foundation model for psychology. We're partnering with mental health providers across the globe to help them provide the best support to everyone, everywhere.
During my time at Casper, I came to realize the impact of sleep on mental health - and the impact of mental health on everyone. The current mental health crisis is impacting every single one of us. We all know someone who’s struggling and needs help. In 2022, 55.8M American adults received mental healthcare. And among the younger generation, things are getting even worse.
Over the last 18 months, I had been looking for a co-founder to start an AI lab focused on mental health. Six months ago, I met Sequoia AI investor, David Cahn, in line at a coffee bar. We spent hours talking about life and philosophy, and he introduced me to his brother, Daniel Reid Cahn, who had the exact same ambition.
I took a walk with Daniel that Sunday and learned that he and I have been living seemingly parallel lives - we both dropped out of school, shared similar values and struggles in our personal lives, and had a deep connection to mental health, which he had studied in college and done research in after. Daniel understands how AI models and the human mind work better than anyone I’ve ever met (in fact, his podcast Thinking Machines is about the intersection of philosophy and AI).
Daniel and I have interviewed over 100 therapists and mental health leaders. We were positively surprised to hear how much people in the space had thinking about using AI to take on the massive latent demand they were facing.
Therapists are looking for offerings to the people on their waiting lists, struggling with subclinical issues like stress, loneliness, sadness, navigating life changes like jobs and relationships, developing healthy habits, re-adjusting post-discharge. On the other end, people in mental health crisis also need more support. Every crisis line we talk to is overwhelmed by demand, and significantly understaffed and under resourced.
After our walk, Daniel and I mapped out the Slingshot Master Plan on a whiteboard. We’ve spent the last six months since building an incredible mission-oriented team and bringing our plan to life.
We are developing the technology that would have helped us in the toughest moments of our past, and that we hope will help all of us in the future.
We invite you to join our mission:
- If you’re a mental health clinic and are interested in partnering to use our models within your organization, please reach out to us at [email protected]
- If you’d like to try SLG-1, our first model, check out our blog post.
Check out our full post on Slingshot here:
https://lnkd.in/efGzs4sp
