AI Makers Are Striving Mightily Toward AI-Builds-AI, Which Will Greatly Impact AI For Mental Health

InnovationAIAI Makers Are Striving Mightily Toward AI-Builds-AI, Which Will Greatly Impact AI For Mental HealthByLance Eliot,Contributor.Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. Dr. Lance B. Eliot is a world-renowned AI scientist and consultant.Follow AuthorJun 13, 2026, 03:15am EDTAI that builds AI is coming, and the impact on AI for mental health is a vital consideration.gettyIn today’s column, I examine the hot trend of AI makers such as Anthropic avidly pursuing the use of AI to further advance AI, generally known as AI-builds-AI, and I then explain how this is going to materially impact AI for mental health.Here’s the deal. Hundreds of millions of people are currently using generative AI and large language models (LLMs) to get mental health advice, including tapping into Anthropic Claude, OpenAI ChatGPT and GPT-5, xAI Grok, Google Gemini, Microsoft CoPilot, and so on. The nature and capabilities of the underlying AI are crucial to how well or how poorly the mental health guidance comes along. Some speculate that, by advancing AI by using AI, rather than advancing AI by human intervention, the result could be extraordinarily spectacular for those seeking mental health advice from AI -- or could be utterly disastrous. You see, on an upbeat note, advanced AI might be so stellar that it eclipses what human therapists and psychologists can do. Imagine a 24/7 AI-based therapist that exceeds any therapy you could otherwise obtain. A boon for human well-being. The problem is that when AI advances AI, it could be that the capability of providing mental health advice gets discombobulated. Perhaps the AI is worse than human therapists and dispenses harmful guidance. Not good. Let’s talk about it.This analysis of AI breakthroughs is part of my ongoing Forbes column coverage on the latest in AI, including identifying and explaining various impactful AI complexities (see the link here). AI And Mental Well-BeingAs a quick background, I’ve been ext...