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Casey Newton (caseynewton@mastodon.social)'s status on Tuesday, 19-Aug-2025 10:27:35 JST Casey Newton

Chatbots can provide something *like* therapy, but it's not the genuine article — so I think it's good more states are cracking down on how companies present them https://www.platformer.news/ai-therapy-paxton-meta-character/
In conversation about 7 months ago from mastodon.social permalink
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1. A Stanford University study, covered in Ars Technica last month, found that therapist-branded chatbots from Character.AI and other providers can encourage delusional thinking and express stigma toward people with certain mental health conditions. But one of its co-authors, Nick Haber, argued that AI likely does have positive applications to therapy, including in training human therapists and in helping clients with journaling and coaching. That strikes me as true — and still not quite enough. Part of the problem here surely relates to language: the words "therapy" and "therapist" connote a level of trust and care that no automated system can provide. Tools like ChatGPT can clearly provide a convincing therapy-like experience — even one that has therapeutic benefits — but should never be mistaken for the genuine article.
  https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/115/052/558/126/233/424/original/8f089b58e4989cf0.png
2. Domain not in remote thumbnail source whitelist: www.platformer.news
  
  The states are coming for AI therapy bots
  
  from @CaseyNewton
  
  It's clear that therapy chatbots can benefit people — but states may have good reason to intervene anyway

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