ONE HUNDRED days into the battle in Gaza, I used to be discovering it more and more troublesome to learn the information. My husband advised me it is likely to be 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 concerning the state of the world,” I typed into ChatGPT. “It’s utterly comprehensible to really feel overwhelmed,” it responded, earlier than providing a listing of pragmatic recommendation: restrict media publicity, give attention to the constructive and practise self-care.
I closed the chat. Whereas I used to be positive I may benefit from doing all of these items, at that second, I didn’t really feel significantly better.

It might sound unusual that AI may even try to supply this type of help. However thousands and thousands of individuals are already turning to ChatGPT and specialist remedy chatbots, which provide handy and cheap psychological well being assist. Even medical doctors are purportedly utilizing AI to assist craft extra empathetic notes to sufferers.
Some consultants say this can be a boon. In spite of everything, AI, unhindered by embarrassment and burnout, may be capable of categorical empathy extra brazenly and tirelessly than people. “We reward empathetic AI,” one group of psychology researchers not too long ago wrote.
However others aren’t so positive. Many query the concept an AI might ever be able to empathy, and fear concerning the penalties of individuals in search of emotional assist 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…