We are the last generation of human psychiatrists.

We will be replaced by artificial intelligence in the next decade, or two.

Now just take a breath! If you haven’t experienced the terrifying progress of artificial intelligence, ² then the imminent demise of our profession will be a shock. Self-interest and sentiment mean psychiatrists will go immediately into denial – like dinosaurs as the asteroid hurtles towards the Earth. Unfortunately, artificial intelligence was developed to predict what words come next in sentences ^{Reference Yu, Gu, Huang and Li3} . Language is the life blood of psychiatric diagnosis and examination. Like all Luddites, psychiatrists will want to point out that they are irreplaceable. For example, the mental state examination also involves observation of mood and some other physical characteristic. If artificial intelligence cannot determine people’s mood from their facial expression and their verbal inflections, they will soon do so. Computers can read X-rays and scans better than many radiologists already! ^{Reference Bottomley4} Psychiatrists have been using treatment algorithms since the invention of the pocket calculator. ^{Reference Shorter5,Reference Wislocki, Tran, Petti, Hernandez-Ramos, Cenkner and Bridgwater6} Treatment algorithms make our demise inevitable. With our enthusiasm for manualised diagnosis and treatment, we have unwittingly written our own death warrants, professionally speaking.

Psychotherapists and psychologists may last a little longer than psychiatrists, but their days are numbered. Computers can already interact emotionally with people, as indicated by the immense popularity of chatbots (ChatGPT’s website is reportedly among the top five most visited websites globally). ^{Reference Jogia7} The rise of psychiatry by artificial intelligence is inevitable (for example, ChatGPT Health has recently (8 Jan 2026) been launched to review your medical records). ^{Reference Haupt8} However, psychiatry by artificial intelligence is a good thing! Human psychiatrists will always be a luxury, confined to rich developed countries. Poor countries will only ever have a few human psychiatrists (mainly for forensic purposes). ⁹ With the rise of artificial intelligence, most people in poor and developing countries will be able to access artificial psychiatry on their mobile phones. In the wealthy Western nations, people typically pay around 100–300 US dollars for a consultation with a psychiatrist (that’s several months wages for people in poor countries). People can speak to a machine for free. Psychiatry by artificial intelligence will be free as soon as the pharmaceutical companies realise that chatbots can be persuaded to recommend their branded medication. The legal and regulatory hurdles that might prevent people from receiving a psychiatric diagnosis and treatment from artificial intelligence will quickly collapse under the weight of Big Pharma’s marketing might.

Small breeding colonies of psychiatrists may survive for a few generations in academic institutions to teach students. But their survival is based on the obviously false premise that artificial intelligence cannot learn to teach people. Conversely, no legislative system will allow computers to restrict the freedom of humans. Hence, human psychiatrists are likely to have a place advising courts of law and administering detention under mental health legislation. There is a certain irony that the bureaucratic nightmare produced by the various Mental Health Acts may be the salvation of a modest number of human psychiatrists in the future.

As a former addiction psychiatrist, I am used to becoming obsolete. The same may not be true of the rest of you. You have my sympathy.