Education and Mental Health in the Age of AI and What’s Coming Next

Dr. Marina A. Badillo-Diaz delivers a sobering assessment from the intersection of education, mental health, and AI: the technology that launched as a coding assistant has become a companion that vulnerable youth turn to at 2 a.m., with tragic consequences including suicides linked to AI chatbots like Character AI. The last 36 months reshaped society; the next 36 will define it. Drawing from her work training 4,500+ social workers on ethical AI use, Badillo-Diaz maps both the breakthroughs (AI scribes reducing documentation burden, personalized learning, accessibility for disabilities) and breakdowns (deepfakes, child pornography, misinformation, the digital divide). Her central argument: AI has a knowledge-based problem. Built by humans in a world of racism, sexism, and classism, it inherits those biases. The guiding principle moving forward must be technology that strengthens human judgment rather than replaces it, with social workers leading the charge on ethical design.

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