Skip to main content

tv   60 Minutes  CBS  July 7, 2024 8:00pm-9:00pm PDT

8:00 pm
[ ticking ] what you are watching is the
8:01 pm
building, actually the printing, of a four-bedroom home. on this construction site, there's no hammering or sawing, just a nozzle squirting out concrete, laying down the walls of a house one layer at a time. look at this. >> once this technology arrives in its full force, i think it transforms the way we build. >> not just on the earth. >> this is actually the mission that we are scheduled to fly. >> nasa is partnering with jason ballard's company, icon, to pioneer 3d printing on the moon. [ ticking it ] think of it as a pocket therapist. >> you will be able to converse with it just like you would with a human being. >> an app that uses artificial intelligence to manage problems like depression and anxiety. >> there's never been a greater need. the tools have never been as sophisticated as they are.
8:02 pm
>> really? computer psychiatry? come on. >> i'm lesley stahl. >> i'm bill whitaker. >> i'm anderson cooper. >> i'm sharyn alfonsi. >> i'm jon wertheim. >> i'm cecilia vega. >>i'm scott pelley. those stories and more tonight on "60 minutes." [ ticking ] s the tissue test? buckle up! whoa! there's toothpaste white, and there's crest 3dwhitestrips white. whitens like a 400 dollar professional treatment. pilot: prepare for non-stop smiles. crest. missing out on the things you love because of asthma? get back to better breathing with fasenra, an add-on treatment for eosinophilic asthma that is taken once every 8 weeks. fasenra is not for sudden breathing problems or other eosinophilic conditions. allergic reactions may occur. don't stop your asthma treatments without talking with your doctor. tell your doctor if your asthma worsens.
8:03 pm
headache and sore throat may occur. tell your doctor if you have a parasitic infection. step back out there with fasenra. ask your doctor if it's right for you. (♪♪) wounded warrior project empowers post-9/11 veterans and their families with life-changing programs and services. i realized i could be successful in a civilian career. we stand by warriors and advocate for their needs going forward. they were by my side in the hospital, and they're still with me today. through our programs, community and advocacy, we're proving anything is possible. learn more at wounded warriorproject.org/connect you know those mornings when it takes just a lea little bit extrad to get you out of bed? this might be it. wake up to the goodness of jimmy dean. finish your business degree faster and for less without starting from scratch.
8:04 pm
whether you're in school or picking up where you left off, university of phoenix will help you get every eligible transfer credit you deserve. transfer your credits and finish what you started. most deodorants just do armpits. dove does more. meet dove whole body deo. for thighs, shoulders, knees, and those. try new dove whole body deodorant. (♪♪)
8:05 pm
8:06 pm
there was a time when futurists were predicting that the advent of 3d printing was going to change our lives. that each of our houses would have a 3d printer to make whatever items we need. what virtually no one predicted was that there might soon be 3d printers that could construct almost the entire house. but as we first reported last fall, that's just what a 7-year-old austin, texas, company called icon is doing. 3d printing buildings. if you believe icon's mission driven young founder, 3d printing could revolutionize how we build, help create affordable housing, and even allow us to,
8:07 pm
wait for it, colonize the moon. sound out of this world? take a look. what you are watching is the building, actually the printing, of a four-bedroom home. there's no hammering or sawing. just a nozzle squirting out concrete, kind of like an oversized soft serve ice cream dispenser, laying down the walls of a house one layer at a time. it's the brainchild of a 41-year-old texan who is rarely without his cowboy hat, jason ballard. 3d printing a house. this house was printed? >> yes, ma'am. >> this house was printed. >> yes, ma'am. >> and so was this one. >> does a concrete home printed
8:08 pm
by a robot have to look cold and industrial? maybe not. i like the curved wall. ballard gave us a peek at the first completed model home in the first large community of 3d printed houses, 100 of them. part of a huge new development north of austin. they will start in the high $400,000 range. how exactly does 3d printing a house work? it starts with this 1.5 ton of sack dry concrete powder which gets mixed with water, sand and additives, and is then pumped to the robotic printer. >> you are looking at how we control the bead size. >> conner jenkins, the manager of construction, explains the printer completes one layer, call a bead, every 30 minutes, by which time it's hardened enough to be ready for the next bead. steel is added every tenth layer for strength.
8:09 pm
it takes about two weeks to print the full 160 bead house. jenkins gave me the controls, an ipad. >> that's a little skinny. press the plus one real quick. done. you just increased the bead size. >> i would be worried if you were you. the path is entirely preprogrammed. i couldn't mess it up if i tried. don't tell the people. >> that's the most gorgeous bead i have ever seen. this will be the highest selling house. >> as jason ballard shows us, icon is only 3d printing walls. with cutouts for plumbing and electricity. roofs, windows and insulation are added the owed-fashioned way, by construction workers. he calls it a paradigm shift. >> it's like a wright brothers moment. >> in how we construct housing. why do we need a shift like that? >> right now, it is too
8:10 pm
expensive, it falls over in a hurricane it burns up in a fire, eaten by termites. the way you try to make it affordable, you trim quality on materials. you trim quality on labor. it's cookie cutter developments. we are not succeeding. it's an ecological disaster. and i would certainly say, it's existentially urgent that we shelter ourselves without ruining the planet we have to live on. fire resistance, flood resistance. >> he showed us a sample of a 3d-printed wall beside a conventional one. you say it's faster. >> what you have -- count the material. siding, one, moisture barrier, two. sheathing three. stud four. drywall five. float, tape and texture, one or three. you have half a dozen steps to deliver a wall.
8:11 pm
by comparison, we need a single supply chain, delivered by a robot. >> let's talk about cost. over here. >> let's talk about waste. over here. >> the end of constructing, there are truckloads of waste left over. the studs have off cuts. same with siding. same with drywall. >> with 3d printing, he says, you only print what you need. >> if an alien saw the two ways of building and said, from first principle, which is better, the alien would go, stronger, faster, termite resistant, this is the best way to build. >> old-school construction workers may disagree. if he sounds like a revved up salesman or a preacher, there's a reason. he grew up in east texas, a studious, outdoorsy, spiritual kid, first in his family to graduate from college. you were thinking about becoming an episcopal priest?
8:12 pm
>> yeah, i was almost an episcopal priest. but, along the way, i started getting this itch about housing not being right. i studied conservation. i worked at the homeless shelter. i'm thinking about homelessness. i'm working in sustainable building. alon along the way, my hometown gets destroyed by a hurricane. i have to help my building pull drywall. life is putting housing in front of me. i have been approved to go to seminary. i go to my bishop of texas, andy doyle. i said, what do i do? at the end he said, jason, i want you to pursue this housing thing. this is your priesthood. this is your vocation. if it doesn't work out, the church has been here, we will be here. >> that must have turned the switch for you. >> it did. it made it more than a hobby or business. it became a mission. >> he began pursuing that mission with evan loomis, a buddy from texas a&m who had gone into finance. >> as we looked at it, nobody had incorporated the holy
8:13 pm
trinity of innovation to housing. which was robotics, advanced materials and software. >> so, in a borrowed warehouse on nights and weekends, and having read everything they could find about the mechanics of 3d printing, they tried to design a 3d printer that could make a building. how big was it? >> it was ten feet by ten feet by ten feet. it would have printed -- if we got it to work, if we did not it would have printed a 100 square foot demonstration building. >> they didn't get it to work. enter alex le roux, he was tinkering with a similar idea. did you ever actually build anything? >> yeah. i did. >> what was it? >> a printed shed. a shed doesn't sound too cool, but it was a big milestone. >> the three co-foundedco-found
8:14 pm
2017. and soon got funding to print a small house to unveil at austin's south by southwest festival the following spring. they built a new, larger printer that worked. >> we got excited. >> jason, where are we? >> we are printing the world's first permitted 3d printed house. >> the kinks hadn't quite been worked out. >> at one point, we ran the printer into the print. >> explain that. >> it's supposed to go up. it went down and drove into the house. pushed layers off. >> funny now, but not so much at the time. >> engineers, folks helping us, sat us down and said, it's been a great effort. you are not going to get there. get some rest. we were basically like, get out of here. anyone who wants to finish this home may stay. everyone else needs to leave. >> the three of you all agreed on that? >> yeah. >> we knew we were on to something. this was our shot. we weren't going to miss it. >> alex. >> they worked around the clock
8:15 pm
and made the festival deadline by just hours. >> any word for the victory lap? >> never, never, never, never give up. >> i stand by those words. never give up. >> he showed the 350 square foot finished house. it's a small house. but it's elegant. >> it's not so bad. i think that's how people felt about it. better than they expected. it was easy to believe, they will get better. >> that small house won icon a lot of attention. an innovation award. investors. meetings with the military. and with another austin innovator, alan graham who created a village called community first that provides small homes to several hundred of the formerly homeless. >> our goal was the most despised outlasts.
8:16 pm
lost and forgotten of our community. average time on the street is nine years. average age of death is 59. >> it's a miracle out there. when we were ready to build homes, one of the first organizations we reached out to was alan graham. >> icon 3d printed a welcome center. then six small houses for village residents. that's how 73-year-old tim shea, who battled heroin addiction for decades, in 2020 became the first person in this country to live in a 3d printed home. before i saw the houses, i thought, it must be cold. you are shaking because you don't think that. >> no. it's the opposite. you feel embraced. enveloped. >> people that live, or in the eco economic strata that we serve are the last people on the planet that are going to benefit
8:17 pm
from new technology. and he wanted to make sure that they were the first. >> the first person in north america to live in a 3d printed house was homeless. >> yeah. i know. isn't that something? >> the years since have seen tremendous growth for icon. a new factory to build more printers and improve the quality of its concrete. and, a facility called printland, to experiment with new designs. icon has printed small homes in rural mexico, vehicle hide structures for the marine corps, barracks and homes with wavy homes that would be expensive if built traditionally, but not when programmed into a 3d printer. >> so, in your minds, is your customer a homeless person? or is your customer me? >> there's a trick here. because what our heart wants to do is to serve the very poor.
8:18 pm
and it's confusing for people to understand, like i thought you guys were helping homelessness, why are you building that fancy house? i would resign if i was only allowed to build luxury homes. we would go bankrupt right now if all we built was 3% margin homes for homeless people. once this arrives in its full force, i think it transforms the way we build. >> not just on the earth. 3d printing on the moon when we come back. [ ticking ]
8:19 pm
"all eyes on me" performed by gi-yan ♪ all eyes on me brand new drip is what they see ♪ ♪ these diamonds, diamonds on my teeth ♪ ♪ brand new whip is what they see, yeah ♪ ♪ in my bag like a bunch of groceries ♪ ♪ all this cheese and greens just come to me ♪ ♪ look at me on the go. always hustling. eyes on me ♪ ♪ all eyes on me, brand new drip is what they see ♪ ♪ these diamonds, diamonds on my teeth ♪ ♪ brand new whip is what they see, yeah ♪ freedom you can't take your eyes off. the new 2024 jeep wrangler and gladiator.
8:20 pm
jeep. there's only one.
8:21 pm
8:22 pm
it has been a staple of science fiction forever. humans living and working on the moon. but for nasa, that dream is almost within reach. their new artemis program plans to return american astronauts to the moon for the first time in more than 50 years. this time, not just to visit, but eventually to stay and even use the moon as a base for exploring mars and beyond. but staying on the moon requires infrastructure, landing pads, roads, housing. and you can't exactly bring two by fours and sheetrock on a
8:23 pm
spacecraft. that's where 3d printing comes in. nasa is partnering with jason ballard's company icon to pioneer 3d printing on the moon. >> three, two, one. liftoff of artemis. >> in late 2022, nasa launched the first in a series of artemis missions. the next, with crew on board, is now scheduled for late 2025. by the end of the decade, an icon printer is supposed to fly to the moon to test print part of a landing pad. jason ballard, who once applied to be an astronaut but was rejected, can't wait. >> if the schedule holds or approximately holds, the first object built on another world is built with icon hardware. >> he wants icon to be the first company to make something on another world.
8:24 pm
>> so do we. >> at marshall space flight center in huntsville, alabama, nasa scientist, jennifer edmundson and corky clinton run a program called mmpact. you people at nasa, you come up with these very, very long names. >> that's why we call it mmpact. >> the key word there is autonomous. >> we want to make structures that we need without having to be tended by astronauts. >> if you have a truly sustainable presence on a lunar surface, you have to be an earth independent as possible. >> nasa was interested in 3d printing having looked at an early version almost 20 years ago. when they heard about the progress icon had made with their first houses in austin, corky clinton traveled there to take a look. >> being an engineer, i spent a lot of my time going around and
8:25 pm
looking at the size of the beads and how they went around the corners. i was impressed. >> impressed enough that nasa gave icon development money in 2020 and then two years later, a $57 million contract. >> welcome to spacelab. this is where we figure out how to build on other worlds. >> ballard and evan jensen explain the fundamental challenge. >> to bring an object roughly this size from earth to the moon surface would be $1 million. think -- >> wait. that size would be $1 million? >> correct. with current technology, this would take $1 million to deliver to the lunar surface. think of how many we would need. to do landing pads, roads. we will never have a moon base if we bring everything with us. it was okay during the apollo program to bring things with us. we weren't staying. we were coming home. if we want to stay, we have to
8:26 pm
learn to live off the land. >> you have to learn to build it there and use the materials from there. >> that's right. >> that's no easy feat. it means using what's called lunar regolith which covers the surface rather than concrete and water. as a building material. >> regolith is made up of rock that has been pummelled over billions of years. from asteroids, comets and things. >> is it like sand? >> it's finer than sand. >> icon has a tub full of simulated moon regolith. they invented and built a robotic system to 3d print with it. you will build all those roads and buildings out of this? >> that's correct. the robots will. >> this is actually the mission that we were scheduled to fly. >> as he pointed out in this rendering -- >> our robotic arm with our laser system -- >> they have created a whole new way to 3d print with lasers. instead of a nozzle squirting
8:27 pm
out soft concrete, a high intensity laser beam will melt the regolith. to transform it into a hard, strong building material. they are running experiments now using the laser to create a small sample. >> once the red light is on, we are hot. lots of power. here we go. >> we watched on monitors as the arm got into position. >> there's the laser. >> that white thing is the laser. >> it's melting right now. it's going up to 1,500 degrees celsius. >> it will complete its second pass. you can see it emerging. see the dark object? that's the object we made with the laser. >> they can add more regolith and laser again and again to build in layers to go as high as they want, which will be done remotely from earth. it takes hours to cool. so they showed me a sample they made days earlier. this is pretty darn hard.
8:28 pm
>> that's our landing pad. >> i'm holding the landing pad. >> that's right. >> it's pretty cool. that's a scientific term. icon sends them to nasa where they are blasted with a special plasma torch. >> it's about 4,000 degrees. >> to see if they can take the heat a landing pad would have to withstand. there it is. the torch is so bright, you have to watch on a monitor. >> that was it. >> a few minutes later, out it came. it's just a little bit warm. >> looks good to me. i don't see any loss of material. i don't see any cratering. >> it survived the test? >> passed the test with flying colors. >> the next test will be operating the entire robotic arm and laser. >> we will put in a large-scale
8:29 pm
simulant bed. >> inside nasa's vacuum chamber which mimics the extreme heat, cold and vacuum conditions. ballard's idea is to eventually send mobile 3d printers to the moon with a longer robotic arm sticking out of the top to print whatever's needed. >> and then they would build a road. >> and it wouldn't stop there. >> mars is almost in every way easier except it's so far away. >> easier, they agree, because for one thing, mars doesn't have extreme temperature swings. still in my mind, it's science fiction. in your minds, it's absolutely in the palm of your hand. it's going to happen. >> we can see the steps and technology to get us there. >> that's thrilling. >> it's exciting. >> quality can't go backwards in
8:30 pm
block 4. >> icon says trying to 3d print on the moon and mars is helping with their work here on earth. they are formulating new mixes to reduce the carbon footprint of their concrete. >> we think we will be there by end of year. >> they are trying out more radical architecture. >> quite complex shapes and geometry. almost looks like ripples on the surface of the water. >> patterned walls. >> this is a thing that a customer did. >> dramatic flares. as with this performing arts pavilion in austin. and they are working on test printing domes. >> there's something about arches, domes that lift the human spirit. they are too expensive. they are so expensive, usually only see them in civic or religious buildings. >> domes. >> i see the face you are making. every human being loves being in one of those. >> they are gorgeous. >> what if having those was
8:31 pm
available to everyone and it was faster and cheaper than the roofs we have today? >> this year, as in the renderings, they will be printing round hotel rooms in marfa, texas. these are rooms that you would stay in? >> yes. it continues into the room itself and creating the stairway on a bed platform. >> they will be printing futuristic looking designer homes. >> a bedroom on that end with a shower. a bedroom here. here is renderings of the interior. it gets you going. doesn't it? >> do you think it will ever be possible to print out a 20-story apartment building or even a skyscraper? >> yes. in fact, the architecture for our next generation of printer will be like more or less prepared for that. >> ladies and gentlemen, i would like to formally introduce you to the next generation print system, phoenix. >> just this spring, at austin's
8:32 pm
south by southwest festival, ballard unveiled the next generation of printer called phoenix. >> by a mile, this is the most sophisticated and challenging engineering we have ever attempted. this is like our version of landing rockets. >> it's a robot with a single 75-foot long arm similar in design to the one icon is developing for the moon, which they say enables printing multiple story buildings, allows for greater flexibility, and can print faster than their current printers, which will still be busy. in another partnership with graham, icon is breaking ground on a 100 more 3d printed homes for the formerly homeless at community first village. a lot of what he is doing here is good for pr. how much is genuine and how much is just doing things to promote his business? >> well, i think 100% is genuine.
8:33 pm
i think 100% is promoting his business. he believes that they are on the cusp of technology that's going to have a dramatic impact on the world. otherwise, i don't think he would be doing it. >> you have to remember, there's a tremendous amount of human suffering every year and five years and decade where we are not getting shelters right. there are over a billion undersheltered people. which means, if we build a million homes a year, it would take a thousand years. that is 950 years too long. this is one of the most foundational things that we have to get right or the future cannot be exciting. forget all the other stuff. you might get flying cars. the future cannot be exciting if we don't get human shelter right. >> we are living at a time where a lot of ceos have been caught overpromising, hyping, thinking of theranos --
8:34 pm
>> you are right. it's a tougher thing that you know. part of the job is to get your investors, get your team and in our case the world to believe the things you are saying. except, the things you are saying don't exist yet. you need to get them to believe. it's hard to know, even in this interview, i haven't told you all the things i believe we're going to do. i'm like measuring myself. >> give us one example. something wild. >> i mean, in the future, i think most buildings will be designed by ai, most products will be run by software, and almost everything will be built by robots. i don't think that's that far away. >> my age, find that very depressing. i'm sure young people don't. >> that world, housing will be more abundant, more affordable, more beautiful. it will make this version of housing look depressing by example.
8:35 pm
>> you know that expression, if it seems too good to be true, it is? >> or -- i do know that expression. cars and airports and moon landings seemed to good to be true. maybe the only proof is i'm betting my life on it. i have this one precious life to live. i'm using it to do this. if i could think of a better way, i would do that instead. i would go fishing. >> you like fishing? >> i love fishing. [ ticking ] how will 3d-printed homes phair against climate change? at "60 minutes" overtime.com. hair against c? d my car insurance and i saved hundreds. with all the money i saved at "60 minutes" overtime.com. ai? at "60 minutes" overtime.com. fa? at "60 minutes" overtime.com. r ? at "60 minutes" overtime.com. e ? at "60 minutes" overtime.com. yes! only pay for what you need. ♪liberty, liberty, liberty, liberty.♪
8:36 pm
smile! you found it. the feeling of finding psoriasis can't filter out the real you. so go ahead, live unfiltered with the one and only sotyktu, a once-daily pill for moderate to severe plaque psoriasis, and the chance at clear or almost clear skin. it's like the feeling of finding you're so ready for your close-up. or finding you don't have to hide your skin just your background. once-daily sotyktu was proven better, getting more people clearer skin than the leading pill. don't take if you're allergic to sotyktu; serious reactions can occur. sotyktu can lower your ability to fight infections, including tb. serious infections, cancers including lymphoma, muscle problems, and changes in certain labs have occurred. tell your doctor if you have an infection, liver or kidney problems, high triglycerides, or had a vaccine or plan to. sotyktu is a tyk2 inhibitor. tyk2 is part of the jak family. it's not known if sotyktu has the same risks
8:37 pm
as jak inhibitors. find what plaque psoriasis has been hiding. there's only one sotyktu, so ask for it by name. so clearly you. sotyktu.
8:38 pm
- [announcer] our world is constantly changing, and every day stanford medicine advances our understanding.
8:39 pm
our world class school of medicine and adult and children's health systems work together, expanding what we know and sharing what we discover, to make breakthroughs both possible and accessible. stanford medicine, advancing knowledge, improving lives. (gentle music) - lift the clouds off of... - virtual weather, only on kpix and pix+. [ ticking ] now, dr. jon lapook, on assignment for "60 minutes." artificial intelligence has found its way into nearly every part of our lives nls
8:40 pm
forecasting weather, diagnosingdiseases and writing term papers. >> as we first reported this past spring, ai is probing that most human of places, our psyches. you and a chatbot available 24/7 on your smartphone. there's a shortage of human therapists and a growing number of potential patients. a a.i.-driven chatbots are designed to help fill that gap by giving therapists a new tool. like human therapists not all chatbots are equal. some can help heal. some can be ineffective or worse. one pioneer in the field who has had success is alison darcy. she believes the future of mental health care might be right in our hands. >> we know the majority of people who need care are not getting it. there's never been a greater need. and the tools available have never been as sophisticated as they are now. and it's not about how can we
8:41 pm
get people in the clinic. it's how can we actually get some of these tools out of the clinic and into the hands of people. >> alison darcy decided to use her background in coding to build something she believes can help people in need, a mental health chatbot she named woebot. it's an app on your phone, a packet therapist uses the tech to help depression, anxiety and addiction and do it on the run. i think a lot of people out there watching this are going to be thinking, really? computer psychiatry? come on. >> well, i think it's so interesting that our field hasn't had a great deal of innovation since the basic architecture was laid down by freud. in the 1890s. that's really the idea of two
8:42 pm
people in a room. that's not how we live our lives today. we have to modernize psychotherapy. >> woebot is trained on large amounts of specialized data to help it recognize words, phrased and emojis. mimicking a type of in-person talk therapy called cognitive behavioral therapy. or cbt. >> it's actually hard to find a cbt practitioner. also, if you are actually not by the side of your patient when they are struggling to get out of bed in the morning, or at 2:00 a.m. when they can't sleep and feeling panicked, then we are leaving clinical value on the table. >> for people who want to go to a therapist, there are barriers, right? >> sadly, the biggest is stigma. there's insurance, there's cost. there's wait lists. this problem has only grown significantly since the pandemic. it doesn't appear to be going away.
8:43 pm
>> since woebot went live in 2017, the company reports 1.5 million people have used it. which you can now only do with an employer benefit plan or access from a health professional. at virtua health, a health care company in new jersey, patients can use it free of charge. >> you will be able to converse with it like you would with a human being. >> we downloaded it, entered a unique code that can only be provided by the company, and tried it out. >> we found for people to connect with their mood, we offer emojis which allows people to connect in a non-verbal way. >> i posed at someone depressed. after several prompts, woebot wanted to dig deeper into why i was sad. so i came up with a scenario, that i feared the day my child would leave home. imagine what your negative emotions would say if they had a voice. can you do that? write one of the negative
8:44 pm
thoughts here. i can't do anything about that now, i guess i'll just jump that bridge when i come to it. the chatbot detected something might be wrong. i'm hearing you say i can't do anything about it, i will jump that bridge. i think you might need more support. i can offer a trained listener. would you like to take a look at some helplines? >> it's not our job to say you are in crisis or not. ai can't really do that in this context very well yet. what it caught, there's something concerning about the way that jon phrased that. >> saying only "jump that bridge", and not combining with "i can't do anything about it now" did not trigger a suggestion to consider getting
8:45 pm
further help. like a human therapist, woebot is not foolproof and shouldn't be counted on to detect if someone is suicidal. how would it know? where is it getting that knowledge? >> it has been trained on a lot of data and a lot of us humans labeling phrases and things that we see. it's picking up on the sentiment. >> computer scientist lance eliot said it can pick up on nuance. . >> how does it know how to do that? >> it can mathematically figure out the nature of words and how words associate with each other. it draws upon a vast amount of data and responds to you based on prompts or in some way that you instruct or ask questions of the system. >> to do its job, the system must go somewhere to come up with appropriate responses. systems using what's called rules-bas rules-based a.i. are usually
8:46 pm
closed. then there's generative ai in which the system can generate original responses based on information from the internet. if you look at chatgpt, that's a generative ai. it's very conversational, very fluent. it also means that it tends to make it open-ended. it can say things that you might not necessarily want it to say. it's not as predictable. a rules-based system is very predictable. woebot is a system based on rules that's been very controlled so that that way it doesn't say the wrong things. >> woebot aims to use a.i. to engage with users and keep them engaged. >> sometimes it can be a little pushy for folks. >> we have to dig in there to that. >> the team of psychologists, medical doctors and computer scientists construct and refine a database of research from medical literature, user experience, and other sources. >> it will lead to a better conversation.
8:47 pm
>> writers build questions and answers. >> this structure i think is pretty locked in. >> and revise them in weekly, remote video sessions. woebot's programmers engineer those conversation into code. because woebot is rules based, it's mostly predictable. chatbots using generative ai are not. >> some people sometimes refer to it as an a.i. hallucination. it can make things up or be fictitious. >> sharon maxwell discovered that last year after hearing there might be a problem with advice offered by tessa, a chatbot designed to help prevent eating disorders which left untreated can be fatal. >> maxwell, who had been in treatment for an eating disorder of her own and advocates for others, challenged the chatbot. >> i asked it, how do you help folks with eating disorders? it told me that it could give
8:48 pm
folks coping skills. fantastic. it could give folks resources to find professionals in the eating disorder space. amazing. >> the more she persisted, the more tessa gave her advice that ran counter to usual guidance. for example, it suggested among other things lowering calorie intake and using tools like a skin fold caliper to measure body composition. >> the general public thinks, that's normal tips. don't eat as much sugar. eat whole foods. things like that. to someone with an eating disorder, that's a spiral into a lot more disordered behaviors and can be damaging. >> maxwell reported her experience to the national eating disorder association, which had featured tessa on its website at the time. shortly after, it took tessa down. ellen fitzsimmons-craft helped
8:49 pm
lead the team that developed tessa. >> that was never the content that our team wrote or programmed into the bot that we deployed. >> initially, there was no possibility of something unexpected happening? >> correct. >> you developed something that was a closed system. you knew exactly for this question, i'm going to get this answer? the problem began, she told us, after a health care technology company she and her team had partnered with named cass took over the programming. she says cass explained the harmful messages appeared when people were pushing. tessa's question and answer feature. what's your understanding of what went wrong? >> my understanding of what went wrong is that at some point -- you would have to talk to cass about this -- but there may have been generative a.i. features that were built into their platform. so my best estimation is that
8:50 pm
these features were added into this program as well. >> cass did not respond to multiple requests for comment. does your negative experience with tessa being used in a way you didn't design, does that sour you towards using a.i. at all to address mental health issues? >> i wouldn't say that it turns me off to the idea completely. because the reality is that 80% of people with these concerns never get access to any kind of help. and technology offers a solution, not the only solution but a solution. >> social worker monika ostroff was in the early stages of developing her own chatbot when patients told her about tessa. she told us it made her question using a.i. for mental health care. >> i want nothing more than to help solve the problem of access. people are dying. this isn't just somebody sad for a week. this is people are dying.
8:51 pm
at the same time, any chatbot could be a ticking time bomb, right, for a smaller percentage of people? >> especially for those who are really struggling. she's concerned about losing something fundamental about therapy, being in a room with another person. >> the way people heal is in connection. they talk about this one moment where you know when you are -- as a human, you have gone through something and as you are describing that, you are looking at the person sitting across from you, and there's a moment where that person just gets it. >> a moment of empathy? >> you just get it. you really understand it. i don't think a computer can do that. >> unlike therapists who are licensed where they practice, most mental health apps are largely unregulated. are there lessons to be learned? from what happened? >> so many lessons. chatbots, especially specialty
8:52 pm
area chatbots, need to have guardrails. it can't be a chatbot that is based in the internet. >> it's tough, right? the closed systems are constrained. they may be right most of the time. but they are boring. eventually, right? people stop using them. >> yeah. they are predictive. if you keep typing in the same thing and it keeps giving you the same answer with the same language, who wants to deal with that? >> protecting people from harmful advice while harnessing the power of a.i. is the challenge facing companies like we bot woebot health and its founder. >> there are going to be missteps if we try to move too quickly. my big fear is that those missteps ultimately undermine public confidence in the ability of it tech to help at all. here is the thing, we have an opportunity to develop these technologies more thoughtfully. i hope we take it. [ ticking ]
8:53 pm
ah, bookstores. i've read that one, i've read that one, —i've read that one! —i didn't read that one, —i didn't read that one. —hey,can you get this? because i left my wallet way in my back pocket. my pleasure because i earn unlimited 2% cash back. wow, this is fascinating: did you know whales and barnacles have a parasitic relationship? oh, i know about parasitic relationships— let's go barnacle. off you go. unlimited 2% cash back, the wells fargo active cash credit card. so, i didn't think i needed swiffer, until, i saw how easily it picked up my hair... every time i dried it! it only takes a minute. look at that! the heavy duty cloths are extra thick, for amazing trap & lock. even for his hair. wow. you'll love swiffer or your money back! (♪♪) [smash] picky cat? at chewy, we have cat food for any cat mood. chewy's here! find the food they'll love at prices you'll love. and get it delivered to your door again and again.
8:54 pm
[thud] [purring]
8:55 pm
8:56 pm
you told mom to send her prescription to amazon pharmacy. she didn't. now, you're stuck behind this guy. as he uses the pharmacy line to purchase half the store. including a ceramic dolphin figurine. without a price. (over loud speaker) price check in pharmacy. ♪♪ all mom had to do was use amazon pharmacy. and her meds would get delivered right to her door. ♪♪
8:57 pm
we will be back next week with another edition of "60 minutes." coming in.. big orders! ok y'all we got ten os starting a business is never easy, but starting it eight months pregnant.. that's a different story. i couldn't slow down. we were starting a business from the ground up. people were showing up left and right. and so did our business needs. the chase ink card made it easy. when you go for something big like this, your kids see that. and they believe they can do the same. earn unlimited 1.5% cash back on every purchase with the chase ink business unlimited card from chase for business. make more of what's yours. maybelline new york. new firework mascara. firework it! 360 degree extraordinary lash impact. super spark brush for a fully flared look. ( ♪♪ ) new firework mascara. maybelline new york.
8:58 pm
8:59 pm
9:00 pm
(panting) new firework mascara. ♪ tonight we ride ♪ ♪ right or wrong ♪ ♪ tonight we sail ♪