AI as Your Therapist? A Medical Expert’s Verdict on the Future of Digital Mental Health

We’re living in a time when therapy sessions have become a new norm in many people’s daily routine, though not everyone is willing to a significant part of their budget on meetings with a specialist. Instead, they turn to AI tools like Chat GPT, aiming at getting some advice or analysis of their current emotional state from the bot that reads through their mind via words.

Despite some claiming that it actually works, psychologists have a number of reasons to warn people against using AI for this matter, which can eventually lead to disastrous consequences.

Why You Shouldn’t Use AI As Your Personal Therapist

Though some experts admit that AI can be helpful for those trying to get off some emotional tension, it’s still not recommended to use it as a therapy tool that will consult you about some serious issues.

For instance, once you describe your problem to an AI instrument, it releases a list of medical products you’re advised to take; without consulting a real therapist first, this person will likely do a significant harm to their health, whether it’s physical or mental.

Remember that any medicine can be prescribed only during actual meetings with a doctor.

Don’t Use AI to Solve Communication Problems Either

You’ve likely seen a thousand stories like this on the internet: after having an argument with their friend, someone starts describing the issue to an AI bot to see whether they were right or wrong; in most cases, the bot will be on their side, claiming that the other person had wrong arguments.

According to psychologists, this is also a bad solution for a problem like this since the AI tool doesn’t see and thus can’t analyze your fears, preventing you from facing them. Apart from that, AI instruments can’t analyze anything but words, so they’re missing out on all the non-verbal signs like the body language, your tone of voice or simply emotional expressions.