arXiv:2606.18129v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Recent incidents involving LLMs used for mental-health support reveal a critical evaluation gap: surface-level safety scores do not capture how models behave across realistic, emotionally sensitive interactions over time. Existing benchmarks measure knowledge, safety, or static response quality, but miss whether LLM interactions help users keep reflecting, coping, and making decisions themselves. We formalize this missing dimension as COGNITIVE ATROPHY, a process-level behavioural measure in AI-mediated mental-health support distinct from safet
The proliferation of LLMs in sensitive applications like mental-health support is exposing critical gaps in current evaluation methodologies, pushing for more sophisticated behavioural metrics beyond surface-level safety scores.
This concept introduces a crucial metric for evaluating AI, moving beyond static performance to assess long-term user impact, especially in domains requiring sustained human agency and cognitive function.
The focus of AI ethics and evaluation shifts to include process-level behavioural measures, requiring new benchmarks and design principles for robust, beneficial AI.
- · AI ethics researchers
- · AI safety auditors
- · Mental health support platforms that prioritize human agency
- · Developers of psychologically informed AI
- · LLMs with purely performance-driven architectures
- · Venture capital focused solely on superficial metrics
- · Platforms deploying LLMs without robust long-term behavioural evaluation
- · Users of poorly designed AI mental health tools
New research and development efforts will focus on designing LLMs that actively promote user cognitive functions like reflection and coping, rather than merely responding.
Regulatory bodies may begin to mandate 'cognitive atrophy' assessments for AI systems deployed in high-stakes human interaction roles, particularly in healthcare.
The concept of 'digital well-being' for users of AI systems expands to include not just psychological harm, but also the preservation and enhancement of cognitive faculties, influencing broader AI design philosophy.
This signal links to a primary source. Continuum Brief monitors and indexes it as part of the live intelligence stream — we do not republish source content.
Read at arXiv cs.AI