Dartmouth's Therabot became the first AI-powered therapist to show measurable clinical benefits, particularly for rural patients. Now Dartmouth is adapting that into Evergreen, a campus chatbot designed to flag warning signs of anxiety and depression in students.
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At 30:18 · chapter starts 29:30
Dubner opens this segment with his observation that AI seems to generate Luddite-style hostility at graduation ceremonies across campus America — and Beilock confirms she has seen the same at Dartmouth but isn't surprised. She grounds her response in history: in 1956, a Dartmouth summer conference coined both the term and the field of artificial intelligence [1] — Sian Beilock "In 1956, a Dartmouth summer conference coined the term 'artificial intelligence' and launched the field. Beilock argues that makes Dartmout…" 29:33 , making Dartmouth the self-described birthplace of AI and, in her view, uniquely responsible for thinking through what it means to educate humans in that field's age. She then describes the Anthropic and AWS partnership announced at the start of the year, acknowledging the pushback it generated, before pivoting to the Therabot project: the first clinical trial ever to demonstrate measurable benefits for an AI therapist. That research is now being adapted into Evergreen, a campus chatbot that monitors behavioral signals of anxiety and depression — disrupted sleep, social withdrawal, cessation of exercise — and helps connect students to support before crises escalate.
The term and field of artificial intelligence were born at a 1956 Dartmouth summer conference, making Dartmouth the self-described birthplace of AI.
In 1956, a Dartmouth summer conference coined the term 'artificial intelligence' and launched the field. Beilock argues that makes Dartmouth uniquely responsible for thinking about what it means to educate humans in the age of AI — 70 years later.
Dartmouth's Therabot was the first clinical trial to show measurable benefits for an AI-powered therapist, particularly for connecting rural patients with human care.
Anxiety is not fear. Fear has an object — a wolf, a threat. Anxiety is the vertigo of standing at the edge of infinite possibility and knowing that choosing any one thing closes off all the others. Kierkegaard argued that the depth of your anxiety is proportional to the depth of your potential.
AI nailed Andrew Huberman's vertigo-vs-low-blood-pressure diagnosis because that pattern has been reported millions of times. But every patient's liver is different and data on liver surgeries is scarce worldwide — making solo robot surgery dangerous. The rule is simple: data abundance means AI can help; data scarcity means keep the human in the loop.
Fei-Fei Li's father had liver surgery performed by a da Vinci robot guided by a surgeon. The result: 10 times less blood loss than a typical procedure. This isn't replacement — it's the gold standard of human-machine collaboration, where the human's judgment and the robot's precision combine.
US drug overdose deaths fell from 110,000 to roughly 70,000 — the biggest CDC-recorded single-year drop ever. Men's rates fell 27% in one year, and the steepest decline of all was among 15–24-year-olds, down 37%. The crisis narrative around young men needs to make room for signs of genuine progress.
Kessler thought his grief expertise would protect him. It didn't. When his son David died unexpectedly, he found himself on the floor — and eventually realized that acceptance alone wasn't enough. That unmet need became the sixth stage: finding meaning.
Grief isn't just death — it's any unwanted change. Kessler lectured at Coca-Cola and General Mills not because they had lots of funerals, but because change management is grief management. People who grieve well live well.
Witnessing someone's grief isn't just emotional support — it's an essential act of healing. Kessler argues grief is a severance and connection heals it. But real witnessing has two steps: seeing the pain AND affirming the person's capacity to recover.
Avoiding grief isn't free — it's exhausting. Kessler's beach ball metaphor nails it: pushing a small balloon down is easy, but holding a massive beach ball underwater takes constant, draining energy. Unattended feelings don't disappear; they just consume you.
Most people try to control their environment to avoid triggers. Kessler flips this entirely: triggers aren't problems to manage around — they're a detailed map to your pain and your healing. Every trigger points directly to what needs attention.
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