Hype rating
AI usage
Who benefits?
Therapy through chatbots is more appealing to introverts who are more likely to open up more with a bot than with a human being as they feel that bots are non-judgmental. Another population that is likely to seek counseling through chatbots are people with low income who have no access to comprehensive health insurance and those who do not have time to schedule professional therapy sessions. It seems to me that this therapy channel is enticing to members of Generation Z and Alpha who, being digital natives, are more prone to using this and other professional services through chatbots and other kinds of virtual assistants or avatars.
What concerns does this bring up?
Therapy chatbots can provide inaccurate information or information that the user wants to hear instead of what a professional therapist might recommend based on his professional training with mental health in mind. Dr. Marlynn Wei summarizes the concerns around therapy chatbots as follows: “The (problems) are the ‘hallucinations’ and bias and inaccuracies. I have a lot of hope for AI as a sort of in combination and augmentation of work, but on its own, I think there are still concerns around the bias that exists within AI, and then also the fact that it can make up things. … I think that’s where having a human therapist would be most useful.”
Also, I myself feel very frustrated when I am forced to interact with a chatbot when seeking customer service from a human being who could provide me with the correct and specific information that I need right there. Although some of the information provided by customer service chatbots may be useful, other information may be inaccurate and is usually provided in lengthy responses. I also believe that increasing interaction with bots and virtual assistants are undermining real communication and people skills.
Additional comments
One more thing about chatbots and AI “agents”: Chatbots and AI-powered tools make up a lot of human-sounding information before our eyes. Researchers refer to this tendency as “hallucinations” or “confabulations”. As Katherine Thorbecke from CNN has rightly said: “Before artificial intelligence can take over the world, it has to solve one problem. The bots are hallucinating.”