@unpublished{noauthor_retain_2025,
	title = {Retain or relinquish the disunity of psychiatry? {Values}, facts in {AI}, datafication, and precision medicine},
	abstract = {How do disruptive technologies (AI, CRISPR, GWAS, synthetic life, etc.) contribute to social and scientific progress? Critics worry that once some of them are deployed widely, they will alter what it means to be human; optimists believe that future progress will mainly come from innovative technologies. For example, are some technologies, such as LLM, GPT, Genome-Wide Association Studies, CRISPR-CAS9, or optogenetics, truly a source of progress in medicine? However, implementing ground-breaking technologies in medicine and particularly in psychiatry should be assessed against a background of core human values and identities: what it means ‘to be human,’ ‘to cure, ’ ‘to care,’ ‘normality,’ or ‘neuro-divergence,’ situated at the intersection of the medical humanities, philosophy of science, and bioethics.

In this paper, we examine how psychiatry will be influenced by two technological game-changers: (a) datafication and AI integration, driven by the rise of AI and Big Data, and (b) precision medicine, supported by advances in molecular neuroscience. Whether these developments will be harmful or advantageous to psychiatry, given its controversial history and unsettled foundation, is a complex philosophical and ethical issue.

Aiming for a positive answer, this paper explores how these two approaches could lead to a ‘corrective progress’ of psychiatry and psychopathology as sciences. Here, corrective progress refers to a steady and ongoing rectification characterized by consistency and continuity, unlike Kuhnian revolutions. We doubt that technology alone can trigger genuine scientific revolutions, but we argue that technologies can identify and rectify some drawbacks of an existing scientific field.

There is a lack of trust in both the foundation and the practice of psychiatry and psychopathology. We argue that an AI- and data-driven approach, combined with precision mental health care, has the potential to assuage some of the fault lines in psychiatry. However, this potential for corrective progress through these technologies must be examined within the framework of not only philosophy of science and technology, but also the medical humanities and bioethics.

Compared to other medical disciplines, psychiatry is a complex, fragmented field with a highly controversial history (e.g. overmedicalization, overdiagnosis, and the negative influence of the pharmaceutical industry on research). After some notable revolutions shook neuroscience (e.g., Kendel’s “brain circuits” metaphor), cognitive science, and genetics (e.g., molecular medicine or “gene matters” turn) in the 90s, psychiatry took an organic (or biological) turn away from its traditional setup, which had been more behavioral and functional. Insel (2017) sees in contemporary psychiatry a conflict between being “brainless” (too focused on psychological, social, and behavioral evidence) and “mindless” (too focused on neurological or genetic factors). Rust (2025) argues that the “big question” in psychopathology is about the target of treatment: the gene? the brain? the mind? the social environment? Or all of the above?

Some specialists work within a functional paradigm (encompassing behavioral, social, and psychological aspects, e.g. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, CBT), while others are limited to an organic/biological framework. Hence, the ‘disunity of psychiatry,’ one of the most infamous and decried pitfalls of psychiatry and psychopathology, and the prospect of correcting it. Is disunity generally a pitfall of a scientific domain (Dupre, Cartwright)? Disunity entails both the plurality of explanations and some model inconsistencies. There is a disunity in respect of what counts as evidence, as well as what values are embedded in each model. Ditto about levels of understanding and interpretation; the disunity opens the scientific enterprise to interpretations. From a normative perspective, to correct disunity does not imply fully unifying the domain but conserving some level of plurality and resolving some inconsistencies. In the case of psychiatry, we hope for the corrective path that exhibits a plurality of values and consistency of evidence. The focus of this argument is the place of AI and precision medicine together on this possible corrective path.

We employ a version of the fact/value dichotomy and the value-ladenness of psychiatry using familiar terms from medical humanities, bioethics, and philosophy of science. The diversity of values and the alignment of evidential support seem to be appropriate elements of corrective progress. A system must guide the AI-driven data collection in digital phenotyping to include AI-based coding of patient experience and identity, beyond what traditional psychiatry offers. Precision medicine based on biomarkers from genomics, “brain circuits,” and pharmacogenomics exemplifies strong evidence-based psychiatry. This complex network of evidence, ranging from genes to brain circuits, neuro-dynamics, and social and cultural contexts, cannot be handled conventionally.  Biological evidence and personalized experiential data cannot be integrated trivially. But the data and AI algorithms capable of processing data have their own design and collection ‘values’ that will often conflict with the values that burden psychiatry. For this, a system of values involving human experience and identity is needed. Hence, the proposal is to accept a plurality or disunity of values and a convergence of evidence.

As an example, we discuss “digital phenotyping” (Spinazze et al. 2019; Oudin et al. 2023) as a confluence of AI- and Data-driven psychiatry and precision mental health, where there is a plurality of values and a promising path to a congruence of evidence.},
	year = {2025},
}

{"_id":"ksHgMq9beKwD5kwHz","bibbaseid":"anonymous-retainorrelinquishthedisunityofpsychiatryvaluesfactsinaidataficationandprecisionmedicine-2025","bibdata":{"bibtype":"unpublished","type":"unpublished","title":"Retain or relinquish the disunity of psychiatry? Values, facts in AI, datafication, and precision medicine","abstract":"How do disruptive technologies (AI, CRISPR, GWAS, synthetic life, etc.) contribute to social and scientific progress? Critics worry that once some of them are deployed widely, they will alter what it means to be human; optimists believe that future progress will mainly come from innovative technologies. For example, are some technologies, such as LLM, GPT, Genome-Wide Association Studies, CRISPR-CAS9, or optogenetics, truly a source of progress in medicine? However, implementing ground-breaking technologies in medicine and particularly in psychiatry should be assessed against a background of core human values and identities: what it means ‘to be human,’ ‘to cure, ’ ‘to care,’ ‘normality,’ or ‘neuro-divergence,’ situated at the intersection of the medical humanities, philosophy of science, and bioethics. In this paper, we examine how psychiatry will be influenced by two technological game-changers: (a) datafication and AI integration, driven by the rise of AI and Big Data, and (b) precision medicine, supported by advances in molecular neuroscience. Whether these developments will be harmful or advantageous to psychiatry, given its controversial history and unsettled foundation, is a complex philosophical and ethical issue. Aiming for a positive answer, this paper explores how these two approaches could lead to a ‘corrective progress’ of psychiatry and psychopathology as sciences. Here, corrective progress refers to a steady and ongoing rectification characterized by consistency and continuity, unlike Kuhnian revolutions. We doubt that technology alone can trigger genuine scientific revolutions, but we argue that technologies can identify and rectify some drawbacks of an existing scientific field. There is a lack of trust in both the foundation and the practice of psychiatry and psychopathology. We argue that an AI- and data-driven approach, combined with precision mental health care, has the potential to assuage some of the fault lines in psychiatry. However, this potential for corrective progress through these technologies must be examined within the framework of not only philosophy of science and technology, but also the medical humanities and bioethics. Compared to other medical disciplines, psychiatry is a complex, fragmented field with a highly controversial history (e.g. overmedicalization, overdiagnosis, and the negative influence of the pharmaceutical industry on research). After some notable revolutions shook neuroscience (e.g., Kendel’s “brain circuits” metaphor), cognitive science, and genetics (e.g., molecular medicine or “gene matters” turn) in the 90s, psychiatry took an organic (or biological) turn away from its traditional setup, which had been more behavioral and functional. Insel (2017) sees in contemporary psychiatry a conflict between being “brainless” (too focused on psychological, social, and behavioral evidence) and “mindless” (too focused on neurological or genetic factors). Rust (2025) argues that the “big question” in psychopathology is about the target of treatment: the gene? the brain? the mind? the social environment? Or all of the above? Some specialists work within a functional paradigm (encompassing behavioral, social, and psychological aspects, e.g. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, CBT), while others are limited to an organic/biological framework. Hence, the ‘disunity of psychiatry,’ one of the most infamous and decried pitfalls of psychiatry and psychopathology, and the prospect of correcting it. Is disunity generally a pitfall of a scientific domain (Dupre, Cartwright)? Disunity entails both the plurality of explanations and some model inconsistencies. There is a disunity in respect of what counts as evidence, as well as what values are embedded in each model. Ditto about levels of understanding and interpretation; the disunity opens the scientific enterprise to interpretations. From a normative perspective, to correct disunity does not imply fully unifying the domain but conserving some level of plurality and resolving some inconsistencies. In the case of psychiatry, we hope for the corrective path that exhibits a plurality of values and consistency of evidence. The focus of this argument is the place of AI and precision medicine together on this possible corrective path. We employ a version of the fact/value dichotomy and the value-ladenness of psychiatry using familiar terms from medical humanities, bioethics, and philosophy of science. The diversity of values and the alignment of evidential support seem to be appropriate elements of corrective progress. A system must guide the AI-driven data collection in digital phenotyping to include AI-based coding of patient experience and identity, beyond what traditional psychiatry offers. Precision medicine based on biomarkers from genomics, “brain circuits,” and pharmacogenomics exemplifies strong evidence-based psychiatry. This complex network of evidence, ranging from genes to brain circuits, neuro-dynamics, and social and cultural contexts, cannot be handled conventionally. Biological evidence and personalized experiential data cannot be integrated trivially. But the data and AI algorithms capable of processing data have their own design and collection ‘values’ that will often conflict with the values that burden psychiatry. For this, a system of values involving human experience and identity is needed. Hence, the proposal is to accept a plurality or disunity of values and a convergence of evidence. As an example, we discuss “digital phenotyping” (Spinazze et al. 2019; Oudin et al. 2023) as a confluence of AI- and Data-driven psychiatry and precision mental health, where there is a plurality of values and a promising path to a congruence of evidence.","year":"2025","bibtex":"@unpublished{noauthor_retain_2025,\n\ttitle = {Retain or relinquish the disunity of psychiatry? {Values}, facts in {AI}, datafication, and precision medicine},\n\tabstract = {How do disruptive technologies (AI, CRISPR, GWAS, synthetic life, etc.) contribute to social and scientific progress? Critics worry that once some of them are deployed widely, they will alter what it means to be human; optimists believe that future progress will mainly come from innovative technologies. For example, are some technologies, such as LLM, GPT, Genome-Wide Association Studies, CRISPR-CAS9, or optogenetics, truly a source of progress in medicine? However, implementing ground-breaking technologies in medicine and particularly in psychiatry should be assessed against a background of core human values and identities: what it means ‘to be human,’ ‘to cure, ’ ‘to care,’ ‘normality,’ or ‘neuro-divergence,’ situated at the intersection of the medical humanities, philosophy of science, and bioethics.\n\nIn this paper, we examine how psychiatry will be influenced by two technological game-changers: (a) datafication and AI integration, driven by the rise of AI and Big Data, and (b) precision medicine, supported by advances in molecular neuroscience. Whether these developments will be harmful or advantageous to psychiatry, given its controversial history and unsettled foundation, is a complex philosophical and ethical issue.\n\nAiming for a positive answer, this paper explores how these two approaches could lead to a ‘corrective progress’ of psychiatry and psychopathology as sciences. Here, corrective progress refers to a steady and ongoing rectification characterized by consistency and continuity, unlike Kuhnian revolutions. We doubt that technology alone can trigger genuine scientific revolutions, but we argue that technologies can identify and rectify some drawbacks of an existing scientific field.\n\nThere is a lack of trust in both the foundation and the practice of psychiatry and psychopathology. We argue that an AI- and data-driven approach, combined with precision mental health care, has the potential to assuage some of the fault lines in psychiatry. However, this potential for corrective progress through these technologies must be examined within the framework of not only philosophy of science and technology, but also the medical humanities and bioethics.\n\nCompared to other medical disciplines, psychiatry is a complex, fragmented field with a highly controversial history (e.g. overmedicalization, overdiagnosis, and the negative influence of the pharmaceutical industry on research). After some notable revolutions shook neuroscience (e.g., Kendel’s “brain circuits” metaphor), cognitive science, and genetics (e.g., molecular medicine or “gene matters” turn) in the 90s, psychiatry took an organic (or biological) turn away from its traditional setup, which had been more behavioral and functional. Insel (2017) sees in contemporary psychiatry a conflict between being “brainless” (too focused on psychological, social, and behavioral evidence) and “mindless” (too focused on neurological or genetic factors). Rust (2025) argues that the “big question” in psychopathology is about the target of treatment: the gene? the brain? the mind? the social environment? Or all of the above?\n\nSome specialists work within a functional paradigm (encompassing behavioral, social, and psychological aspects, e.g. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, CBT), while others are limited to an organic/biological framework. Hence, the ‘disunity of psychiatry,’ one of the most infamous and decried pitfalls of psychiatry and psychopathology, and the prospect of correcting it. Is disunity generally a pitfall of a scientific domain (Dupre, Cartwright)? Disunity entails both the plurality of explanations and some model inconsistencies. There is a disunity in respect of what counts as evidence, as well as what values are embedded in each model. Ditto about levels of understanding and interpretation; the disunity opens the scientific enterprise to interpretations. From a normative perspective, to correct disunity does not imply fully unifying the domain but conserving some level of plurality and resolving some inconsistencies. In the case of psychiatry, we hope for the corrective path that exhibits a plurality of values and consistency of evidence. The focus of this argument is the place of AI and precision medicine together on this possible corrective path.\n\nWe employ a version of the fact/value dichotomy and the value-ladenness of psychiatry using familiar terms from medical humanities, bioethics, and philosophy of science. The diversity of values and the alignment of evidential support seem to be appropriate elements of corrective progress. A system must guide the AI-driven data collection in digital phenotyping to include AI-based coding of patient experience and identity, beyond what traditional psychiatry offers. Precision medicine based on biomarkers from genomics, “brain circuits,” and pharmacogenomics exemplifies strong evidence-based psychiatry. This complex network of evidence, ranging from genes to brain circuits, neuro-dynamics, and social and cultural contexts, cannot be handled conventionally. Biological evidence and personalized experiential data cannot be integrated trivially. But the data and AI algorithms capable of processing data have their own design and collection ‘values’ that will often conflict with the values that burden psychiatry. For this, a system of values involving human experience and identity is needed. Hence, the proposal is to accept a plurality or disunity of values and a convergence of evidence.\n\nAs an example, we discuss “digital phenotyping” (Spinazze et al. 2019; Oudin et al. 2023) as a confluence of AI- and Data-driven psychiatry and precision mental health, where there is a plurality of values and a promising path to a congruence of evidence.},\n\tyear = {2025},\n}\n\n","key":"noauthor_retain_2025","id":"noauthor_retain_2025","bibbaseid":"anonymous-retainorrelinquishthedisunityofpsychiatryvaluesfactsinaidataficationandprecisionmedicine-2025","role":"","urls":{},"metadata":{"authorlinks":{}}},"bibtype":"unpublished","biburl":"https://api.zotero.org/users/125019/collections/3YUHLGB8/items?key=Lc6HkBjypJKwJM7TcEK9NVXQ&format=bibtex&limit=100","dataSources":["e29L3KxyJquhZtSkk","wjn8cK5LeFh95gDh5"],"keywords":[],"search_terms":["retain","relinquish","disunity","psychiatry","values","facts","datafication","precision","medicine"],"title":"Retain or relinquish the disunity of psychiatry? Values, facts in AI, datafication, and precision medicine","year":2025}