Artificial Empathy with the Scott Sandland, CEO of Cyrano.ai (Episode 180)
Welcome, Scott Sandland
Scott is the CEO and Co-founder of Cyrano.ai. Scott is the former world’s youngest hypnotherapist. He has experience leading purpose-driven organizations. He has been published in numerous peer-reviewed journals, including Psychology Today, Forbes, and Entrepreneur Magazine.
How Scott Got Started in His AI Career?
Scott was the CEO of a mental health clinic and had a private practice focusing on Good to Great things. He watched the teen crisis unfold and saw that it was a huge problem and wanted to build something that would scale well for drug and rehab centers.
Scott later decided to build a chatbot for therapy but soon realized that a chatbot wouldn’t work well because chatbots were optimized for brief responses and that is the opposite of effective communication.
Scott had a friend who was a neurolinguist and a sociologist and they collaborated to get a patent for this tool that they use for commercial applications and customer success. However, the goal is to deploy this tool in vulnerable populations such as teen crisis hotlines, Veterans Affairs, and suicide hotlines.
Empathy via an Artificial Chatbot
Scott shared that many people have a difficult time distinguishing between sympathy and empathy.
Scott stated that empathy is the intrinsic desire to help improve another’s situation based on your understanding of that situation.
Optimization for Appreciating Human Experience
Scott wanted to build a system that was optimized for appreciating human experience in terms of mental states. Scott wanted to create a type of hierarchy of mental states that could move a person in a direction on the path to better micro-wins.
Scott shared that empathy can be thoughts and patterns or giving people insight on what moves them along a continuum.
AI for the Patient Intake Process
Scott shared an example of how the intake process is very transactional for doctors, but for the patient, it is probably the most important conversation they are having that day.
Scott posed that if we could build AI that would say to the doctor, “here is what matters to this patient” this would help this process.
What Would be the Impact of Scott’s Technology if it Were Adopted at Scale?
Scott shared that it would have a huge impact on teen suicide. Teen suicide has been doubling every 7 years and it is an important issue that should be addressed. The impact of this aspect being optimized could change the lives of millions of families a year.
Scott’s vision is that every freshman would have an anonymous, peer support tool that is an AI device, that gives them the support they need in times of crisis. One benefit is that it would save insurance companies billions of dollars.
What is Needed to Get this Tech Adopted with the Opportunity that is Available?
Scott wants to talk to people who are having high-value conversations. It’s all about making people’s experience with brands much better.
What Are the Use Cases in Commercial Applications?
Scott shared that the use cases would be ideal for retail, automotive, real estate sales, financial planning, and similar industries that require a longer sales cycle and longer conversation. It is also very ideal for headhunting and recruiting.
Could This Be Adopted Across by Every Single Podcast?
Scott feels that if this could happen it would transform the appetite for people who want to jump into the podcasting environment. Scott associated conversations with how these conversations make people feel.
Connect with Scott Sandland
Visit Cyrano.ai website
Follow Scott on Linkedin
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