President’s Commission on Artificial Intelligence (CAI)

The mission of the APsA President’s Commission on Artificial Intelligence (CAI) is to develop psychoanalytically informed responses to the accelerating AI age across education, theory, clinical practice, and organizational life.

Working through focused, project-specific teams, the CAI addresses both the promise and the peril faced by the psychoanalytic community, the broader community of mental health practitioners, and the general public. The shared goal across domains is for psychoanalysis to be an important voice in the cultural chorus working to build a humanizing AI future.

Commission Chairs

Dr. Todd Essig, Ph.D. is Faculty and Training and Supervising Psychoanalyst at the William Alanson White Institute, Faculty at the NYU Postdoctoral Program in Psychoanalysis, inaugural member of Psychotherapy Action Network (PsiAN) Advisory Board, and Distinguished Fellow of the NYS Psychological Association (NYSPA). Widely known as a pioneer in the innovative uses of mental health technologies, he publishes and lectures widely. He’s founder and chair of the American Psychoanalytic Association’s (APsA) Commission on Artificial Intelligence (CAI) and a member of the International Psychoanalytical Association (IPA) sub-committee on artificial intelligence. Previously, he was a member of both IPA’s task forces on remote treatment and psychoanalytic education where he co-authored the report used as the basis for IPA educational policy. During the pandemic he co-chaired APsA’s Covid-19 Advisory Team where he was awarded Distinguished Service awards from APsA and NYSPA. For 10 years, until the pandemic hit, he wrote “Managing Mental Wealth” for Forbes. Dr. Essig maintains a private practice in New York where he treats individuals and couples.

Dr. Amy Levy is a clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst. She chairs the American Psychoanalytic Association’s (APsA) Commission on Artificial Intelligence (CAI), serves on the subcommittee “Artificial Intelligence” for the International Psychoanalytical Association (IPA) committee, “Psychoanalysis and Technology,” serves on the editorial board of The Psychoanalytic Quarterly, and she is Editor of the Substack series, “AI in My Mind,” for The Psychoanalytic Quarterly. She is the author of the book, The New Other: Alien Intelligence and the Innovation Drive. Dr. Levy lectures internationally on the intersection of psychoanalysis and artificial intelligence and maintains a private practice in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

The CAI Report

The CAI Report: Insights & Commentary at the Intersection of Psychoanalysis & AI
Alexander Stein, PhD | Editor-in-Chief

The CAI Report is a publication of The American Psychoanalytic Association’s President’s Commission on Artificial Intelligence and offers psychoanalytic perspectives on issues involving AI’s uses, applications, risks, and benefits to individuals and in society. Our aim is that The Report will meaningfully contribute to the global conversations about the human and social dimensions of AI, and be a trusted resource for mental health professionals, technology professionals, and the general public.

The APsA President’s Commission on Artificial Intelligence (CAI) supports and leads efforts across the organization to address the impact of AI on psychoanalytic care, education, theory, and professional life. It also considers AI’s broader cultural effects, including transformations of self-experience, intimate relationships, and human desire. Through active study and project development, the CAI works to respond nimbly to rapid change, helping to ensure that psychoanalysis remains vital and responsive in the emerging AI age.

Learn more and read new issues of The CAI Report.

CAI Conversations

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CAI Conversations are topic-specific roundtable discussions that bring psychoanalytic sensibilities into dialogue with experts from the psychoanalytic community and across disciplines. Moderated by CAI Chairs Amy Levy and Todd Essig, each conversation puts psychoanalytic thinking to work on a pressing question at the intersections of AI and the human mind. They demonstrate what it sounds like when psychoanalysis joins the cultural chorus working to build a humanizing AI future. You can find them here: COMING SOON!

The CAI Conversations project is the next-generation version of the CAI Workshop Series. Those featured real-time expert lectures and participant discussions. You can find the archive here on YouTube.

CAI Currents

AI is generating an ocean of information, more than anyone can absorb. CAI Currents finds signal in the noise, identifying developments in AI of relevance to psychoanalysts, mental health practitioners, and anyone interested in what AI means for the human mind. Each “Current” highlights news, research, and emerging trends worth paying attention to, all from a psychoanalytic sensibility that defines all CAI projects.

CAI Currents is presented in collaboration with The American Psychoanalyst (TAP). An archive of previous installments can be found on the TAP Substack.

Uncharted Territory: Humans and the Rise of AI (film)

Uncharted Territory is a film that asks what everyone else isn’t asking: not what AI can or can’t do, but what gets lost when we use or have a relationship with an AI entity. The time to make this film is now; AI systems are becoming emotionally convincing, and people are increasingly forming attachments to these new others that perform human connection without experiencing it. Using psychoanalysis as a guide, the film explores the invisible human processes that vanish or are transformed when another mind is replaced by an algorithm — and what’s at stake for the future of human intimacy, connection, and experience.

Noted filmmakers Charles de Lauzirika (Director) and Jeremy Emerman (Director of Photography) are the documentarians joining Drs. Essig and Levy to produce the film.

Projects for the Profession

The CAI Institute/Center Working Group: The CAI convenes a monthly meeting of institute and center leaders to discuss the challenges and opportunities AI is presenting to psychoanalytic education and community life. It is designed to be the proverbial safe space where those guiding psychoanalytic education into the AI age can share their experience.

Peer Consultation Groups: The CAI recognizes that AI is already transforming psychoanalytic care, and the anxiety that accompanies such radical change is inevitable. Our Peer Consultation Groups are regular peer groups where providers of psychoanalytic care meet to share clinical experiences, think together, and learn from one another. These groups offer a place to make sense of what clinicians are starting to encounter: changes to self-experience, intimate relating, and even desire itself. Please register for CAI updates to stay current on when new groups are being launched.

Documents:

Organizing Principles for Crafting AI Use Policies in Psychoanalytic Education (A CAI document: October, 2025)

Contact the Chairs

To contact the CAI, reach out to [email protected].

President’s Commission on Artificial Intelligence (CAI)

APsA Publications

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The Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association (JAPA)

The American Psychoanalyst (TAP)

Psychotherapist Newsletter

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