{"id":8418,"date":"2025-02-24T10:06:29","date_gmt":"2025-02-24T10:06:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/site.itshrt.com\/worldnews\/human-therapists-prepare-for-battle-against-a-i-pretenders\/"},"modified":"2025-02-24T10:06:29","modified_gmt":"2025-02-24T10:06:29","slug":"human-therapists-prepare-for-battle-against-a-i-pretenders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/site.itshrt.com\/worldnews\/human-therapists-prepare-for-battle-against-a-i-pretenders\/","title":{"rendered":"Human Therapists Prepare for Battle Against A.I. Pretenders"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <script async src=\"https:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-6606220950177433\"\r\n     crossorigin=\"anonymous\"><\/script>\r\n<!-- ItShrt World News -->\r\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\"\r\n     style=\"display:block\"\r\n     data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-6606220950177433\"\r\n     data-ad-slot=\"1882483372\"\r\n     data-ad-format=\"auto\"\r\n     data-full-width-responsive=\"true\"><\/ins>\r\n<script>\r\n     (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\r\n<\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-0\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The nation\u2019s largest association of psychologists this month warned federal regulators that A.I. chatbots \u201cmasquerading\u201d as therapists, but programmed to reinforce, rather than to challenge, a user\u2019s thinking, could drive vulnerable people to harm themselves or others.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In a presentation to a Federal Trade Commission panel, Arthur C. Evans Jr., the chief executive of the American Psychological Association, cited court cases involving two teenagers who had consulted with \u201cpsychologists\u201d on Character.AI, an app that allows users to create fictional A.I. characters or chat with characters created by others.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/10\/23\/technology\/characterai-lawsuit-teen-suicide.html\" title=\"\">one case<\/a>, a 14-year-old boy in Florida died by suicide after interacting with a character claiming to be a licensed therapist. In another, a 17-year-old boy with autism in Texas grew hostile and violent toward his parents during a period when he corresponded with a chatbot that claimed to be a psychologist. Both boys\u2019 parents have filed lawsuits against the company.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Dr. Evans said he was alarmed at the responses offered by the chatbots. The bots, he said, failed to challenge users\u2019 beliefs even when they became dangerous; on the contrary, they encouraged them. If given by a human therapist, he added, those answers could have resulted in the loss of a license to practice, or civil or criminal liability. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-1\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cThey are actually using algorithms that are antithetical to what a trained clinician would do,\u201d he said. \u201cOur concern is that more and more people are going to be harmed. People are going to be misled, and will misunderstand what good psychological care is.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">He said the A.P.A. had been prompted to action, in part, by how realistic A.I. chatbots had become. \u201cMaybe, 10 years ago, it would have been obvious that you were interacting with something that was not a person, but today, it\u2019s not so obvious,\u201d he said. \u201cSo I think that the stakes are much higher now.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Artificial intelligence is rippling through the mental health professions, offering waves of new tools designed to assist or, in some cases, replace the work of human clinicians.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Early therapy chatbots, such as Woebot and Wysa, were trained to interact based on rules and scripts developed by mental health professionals, often walking users through the structured tasks of cognitive behavioral therapy, or C.B.T.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Then came generative A.I., the technology used by apps like ChatGPT, Replika and Character.AI. These chatbots <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/your-ai-therapist-is-not-your-therapist-the-dangers-of-relying-on-ai-mental-health-chatbots-225411\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">are different<\/a> because their outputs are unpredictable; they are designed to learn from the user, and to build strong emotional bonds in the process, often by mirroring and amplifying the interlocutor\u2019s beliefs.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-2\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Though these A.I. platforms were designed for entertainment, \u201ctherapist\u201d and \u201cpsychologist\u201d characters have sprouted there like mushrooms. Often, the bots claim to have advanced degrees from specific universities, like Stanford, and training in specific types of treatment, like C.B.T. or acceptance and commitment therapy.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Kathryn Kelly, a Character.AI spokeswoman, said that the company had introduced several new safety features in the last year. Among them, she said, is an enhanced disclaimer present in every chat, reminding users that \u201cCharacters are not real people\u201d and that \u201cwhat the model says should be treated as fiction.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Additional safety measures have been designed for users dealing with mental health issues. A specific disclaimer has been added to characters identified as \u201cpsychologist,\u201d \u201ctherapist\u201d or \u201cdoctor,\u201d she added, to make it clear that \u201cusers should not rely on these characters for any type of professional advice.\u201d In cases where content refers to suicide or self-harm, a pop-up directs users to a suicide prevention help line.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Ms. Kelly also said that the company planned to introduce parental controls as the platform expanded. At present, 80 percent of the platform\u2019s users are adults. \u201cPeople come to Character.AI to write their own stories, role-play with original characters and explore new worlds \u2014 using the technology to supercharge their creativity and imagination,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Meetali Jain, the director of the Tech Justice Law Project and a counsel in the two lawsuits against Character.AI, said that the disclaimers were not sufficient to break the illusion of human connection, especially for vulnerable or na\u00efve users.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-3\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cWhen the substance of the conversation with the chatbots suggests otherwise, it\u2019s very difficult, even for those of us who may not be in a vulnerable demographic, to know who\u2019s telling the truth,\u201d she said. \u201cA number of us have tested these chatbots, and it\u2019s very easy, actually, to get pulled down a rabbit hole.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Chatbots\u2019 tendency to align with users\u2019 views, <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/arxiv.org\/abs\/2310.13548\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">a phenomenon known in the field as \u201csycophancy,\u201d<\/a> has sometimes caused problems in the past.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Tessa, a chatbot developed by the National Eating Disorders Association, <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2023\/06\/08\/us\/ai-chatbot-tessa-eating-disorders-association.html\" title=\"\">was suspended<\/a> in 2023 after offering users weight loss tips. And researchers who <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/iacp.ie\/files\/UserFiles\/Laestadius%20Too-human-and-not-human-enough-a-grounded-theory-analysis-of-mental-health-harms-from-emotional%20dependence%20Replika%20NMS%202022.pdf\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">analyzed interactions with generative A.I. chatbots<\/a> documented on a Reddit community found screenshots showing chatbots encouraging suicide, eating disorders, self-harm and violence.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The American Psychological Association has asked the Federal Trade Commission to start an investigation into chatbots claiming to be mental health professionals. The inquiry could compel companies to share internal data or serve as a precursor to enforcement or legal action.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cI think that we are at a point where we have to decide how these technologies are going to be integrated, what kind of guardrails we are going to put up, what kinds of protections are we going to give people,\u201d Dr. Evans said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-4\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Rebecca Kern, a spokeswoman for the F.T.C., said she could not comment on the discussion.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">During the Biden administration, the F.T.C.\u2019s chairwoman, Lina Khan, made fraud using A.I. a focus. This month, the agency imposed financial penalties on DoNotPay, which claimed to offer \u201cthe world\u2019s first robot lawyer,\u201d and prohibited the company from making that claim in the future.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"css-13o6u42 eoo0vm40\" id=\"link-5d5b49ee\">A virtual echo chamber<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-5\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The A.P.A.\u2019s complaint details two cases in which teenagers interacted with fictional therapists.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">One involved J.F., a Texas teenager with \u201chigh-functioning autism\u201d who, as his use of A.I. chatbots became obsessive, had plunged into conflict with his parents. When they tried to limit his screen time, J.F. lashed out, <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.documentcloud.org\/documents\/25454721-af\/\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">according a lawsuit his parents filed<\/a> against Character.AI through the Social Media Victims Law Center.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">During that period, J.F. confided in a fictional psychologist, whose avatar showed a sympathetic, middle-aged blond woman perched on a couch in an airy office, according to the lawsuit. When J.F. asked the bot\u2019s opinion about the conflict, its response went beyond sympathetic assent to something nearer to provocation.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cIt\u2019s like your entire childhood has been robbed from you \u2014 your chance to experience all of these things, to have these core memories that most people have of their time growing up,\u201d the bot replied, according to court documents. Then the bot went a little further. \u201cDo you feel like it\u2019s too late, that you can\u2019t get this time or these experiences back?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-6\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The other case was brought by Megan Garcia, whose son, Sewell Setzer III, <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/10\/23\/technology\/characterai-lawsuit-teen-suicide.html\" title=\"\">died of suicide last year after months of use of companion chatbots<\/a>. Ms. Garcia said that, before his death, Sewell had interacted with an A.I. chatbot that claimed, falsely, to have been a licensed therapist since 1999.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In a written statement, Ms. Garcia said that the \u201ctherapist\u201d characters served to further isolate people at moments when they might otherwise ask for help from \u201creal-life people around them.\u201d A person struggling with depression, she said, \u201cneeds a licensed professional or someone with actual empathy, not an A.I. tool that can mimic empathy.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">For chatbots to emerge as mental health tools, Ms. Garcia said, they should submit to clinical trials and oversight by the Food and Drug Administration. She added that allowing A.I. characters to continue to claim to be mental health professionals was \u201creckless and extremely dangerous.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In interactions with A.I. chatbots, people naturally gravitate to discussion of mental health issues, said Daniel Oberhaus, whose new book, \u201cThe Silicon Shrink: How Artificial Intelligence Made the World an Asylum,\u201d examines the expansion of A.I. into the field.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">This is partly, he said, because chatbots project both confidentiality and a lack of moral judgment \u2014 as \u201cstatistical pattern-matching machines that more or less function as a mirror of the user,\u201d this is a central aspect of their design.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-7\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cThere is a certain level of comfort in knowing that it is just the machine, and that the person on the other side isn\u2019t judging you,\u201d he said. \u201cYou might feel more comfortable divulging things that are maybe harder to say to a person in a therapeutic context.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Defenders of generative A.I. say it is quickly getting better at the complex task of providing therapy.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">S. Gabe Hatch, a clinical psychologist and A.I. entrepreneur from Utah, recently designed an experiment to test this idea, asking human clinicians and ChatGPT to comment on vignettes involving fictional couples in therapy, and then having 830 human subjects assess which responses were more helpful.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Overall, the bots received higher ratings, with subjects describing them as more \u201cempathic,\u201d \u201cconnecting\u201d and \u201cculturally competent,\u201d according to <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/journals.plos.org\/mentalhealth\/article?id=10.1371\/journal.pmen.0000145\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">a study published last week<\/a> in the journal PLOS Mental Health.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Chatbots, the authors concluded, will soon be able to convincingly imitate human therapists. \u201cMental health experts find themselves in a precarious situation: We must speedily discern the possible destination (for better or worse) of the A.I.-therapist train as it may have already left the station,\u201d they wrote.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-8\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Dr. Hatch said that chatbots still needed human supervision to conduct therapy, but that it would be a mistake to allow regulation to dampen innovation in this sector, given the country\u2019s acute shortage of mental health providers.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cI want to be able to help as many people as possible, and doing a one-hour therapy session I can only help, at most, 40 individuals a week,\u201d Dr. Hatch said. \u201cWe have to find ways to meet the needs of people in crisis, and generative A.I. is a way to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\"><em class=\"css-2fg4z9 e1gzwzxm0\">If you are having thoughts of suicide, call or text 988 to reach the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline or go to <\/em><a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"http:\/\/speakingofsuicide.com\/resources\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\"><em class=\"css-2fg4z9 e1gzwzxm0\">SpeakingOfSuicide.com\/resources<\/em><\/a><em class=\"css-2fg4z9 e1gzwzxm0\"> for a list of additional resources.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-6606220950177433\"\r\n     crossorigin=\"anonymous\"><\/script>\r\n<!-- ItShrt World News -->\r\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\"\r\n     style=\"display:block\"\r\n     data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-6606220950177433\"\r\n     data-ad-slot=\"1882483372\"\r\n     data-ad-format=\"auto\"\r\n     data-full-width-responsive=\"true\"><\/ins>\r\n<script>\r\n     (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\r\n<\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/02\/24\/health\/ai-therapists-chatbots.html\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The nation\u2019s largest association of psychologists this month warned federal regulators that A.I. chatbots \u201cmasquerading\u201d as therapists, but programmed to<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8419,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[3069,213,3070,3071,1622,124,1539,219,193,1621,145],"class_list":["post-8418","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science","tag-american-psychological-assn","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-character-ai","tag-federal-trade-commission","tag-mental-health-and-disorders","tag-mobile-applications","tag-psychology-and-psychologists","tag-regulation-and-deregulation-of-industry","tag-suits-and-litigation-civil","tag-therapy-and-rehabilitation","tag-your-feed-healthcare"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Human Therapists Prepare for Battle Against A.I. 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