The son of legendary actor and comedian Robin Williams has partnered with a San Francisco artificial intelligence startup to make mental health care more accessible and efficient.
Zak Williams, who is the CEO and co-founder of neurotransmitter health company PYM, appeared on NewsNation’s “Katie Pavlich Tonight” to discuss his role as a health adviser for Headlamp Health. The health care company recently launched Lumos AI to better assist those in need of mental health treatment.
“I am very passionate about mental health. I find that service is my path to healing from the trauma associated with my father dying by suicide,” Williams said during his television appearance on Wednesday, Jan. 21.
His father, star of”Mrs. Doubtfire” and former San Francisco resident, died in 2014.
Robin Williams, left, and his son Zak Williams at the Timo Pre Fall 2009 Launch with Interview Magazine at Phillips De Pury in New York City in 2008. (Jamie McCarthy/WireImage for Timo Wallets LLC)
“I’m very excited about what Lumos is doing, and believe that precision neuropsychiatry is greatly augmented through artificial intelligence,” he added.
Williams went on to explain that the technology aims to improve the standard of mental health care through drug trials and development as well as by establishing early diagnoses.
“The goal is, ideally, to identify indicators of things like depression, of suicidal ideation and so forth early on before it becomes a crisis situation,” he said. “I’m a big fan of prioritizing mental health every day. We need to prioritize things like great sleep, nutrition, community, connection and in many situations, a spiritual practice.”
While Williams is embracing the technology and using AI to help honor his father’s legacy, his sister Zelda Williams has been vocal about a downside of the technology, calling out “gross” AI-generated recreations of her father.
“Please, just stop sending me AI videos of Dad,” the “Lisa Frankenstein” director posted on Instagram in October. “Stop believing I wanna see it or that I’ll understand, I don’t and I won’t. … (B)elieve me, it’s NOT what he’d want.”
She has also criticized the use of AI in the broader art world, specifically honing in on the viral trend that uses the technology to recreate the animation style of Japan’s Studio Ghibli.
This article originally published at Robin Williams’ son teams up with S.F. startup to use AI as mental health resource.
