ONE HUNDRED days into the conflict in Gaza, I used to be discovering it more and more tough to learn the information. My husband instructed me it is perhaps time to speak to a therapist. As a substitute, on a chilly winter morning, after having fought again tears studying one more story of human tragedy, I turned to synthetic intelligence.
“I’m feeling fairly bummed out in regards to the state of the world,” I typed into ChatGPT. “It’s fully comprehensible to really feel overwhelmed,” it responded, earlier than providing an inventory of pragmatic recommendation: restrict media publicity, give attention to the constructive and practise self-care.
I closed the chat. Whereas I used to be certain I may benefit from doing all of these items, at that second, I didn’t really feel a lot better.

It may appear unusual that AI may even try to supply this sort of help. However tens of millions of persons are already turning to ChatGPT and specialist remedy chatbots, which supply handy and cheap psychological well being help. Even medical doctors are purportedly utilizing AI to assist craft extra empathetic notes to sufferers.
Some specialists say this can be a boon. In spite of everything, AI, unhindered by embarrassment and burnout, may be capable to categorical empathy extra brazenly and tirelessly than people. “We reward empathetic AI,” one group of psychology researchers lately wrote.
However others aren’t so certain. Many query the concept an AI may ever be able to empathy, and fear in regards to the penalties of individuals searching for emotional help from machines that may solely fake to care. Some even marvel if the rise of so-called empathetic AI may change the best way we conceive of…