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The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
Using Generative AI for therapy might feel like a lifeline – but there's danger in seeking certainty in a chatbot
Tran* sat across from me, phone in hand, scrolling. 'I just wanted to make sure I didn't say the wrong thing,' he explained, referring to a recent disagreement with his partner. 'So I asked ChatGPT what I should say.' He read the chatbot-generated message aloud. It was articulate, logical and composed – almost too composed. It didn't sound like Tran. And it definitely didn't sound like someone in the middle of a complex, emotional conversation about the future of a long-term relationship. It also did not mention anywhere some of Tran's contributing behaviours to the relationship strain that Tran and I had been discussing. Like many others I've seen in therapy recently, Tran had turned to AI in a moment of crisis. Under immense pressure at work and facing uncertainty in his relationship, he'd downloaded ChatGPT on his phone 'just to try it out'. What began as a curiosity soon became a daily habit, asking questions, drafting texts, and even seeking reassurance about his own feelings. The more Tran used it, the more he began to second-guess himself in social situations, turning to the model for guidance before responding to colleagues or loved ones. He felt strangely comforted, like 'no one knew me better'. His partner, on the other hand, began to feel like she was talking to someone else entirely. ChatGPT and other generative AI models present a tempting accessory, or even alternative, to traditional therapy. They're often free, available 24/7 and can offer customised, detailed responses in real time. When you're overwhelmed, sleepless and desperate to make sense of a messy situation, typing a few sentences into a chatbot and getting back what feels like sage advice can be very appealing. But as a psychologist, I'm growing increasingly concerned about what I'm seeing in the clinic; a silent shift in how people are processing distress and a growing reliance on artificial intelligence in place of human connection and therapeutic support. AI might feel like a lifeline when services are overstretched – and make no mistake, services are overstretched. Globally, in 2019 one in eight people were living with a mental illness and we face a dire shortage of trained mental health professionals. In Australia, there has been a growing mental health workforce shortage that is impacting access to trained professionals. Clinician time is one of the scarcest resources in healthcare. It's understandable (even expected) that people are looking for alternatives. Turning to a chatbot for emotional support isn't without risk however, especially when the lines between advice, reassurance and emotional dependence become blurred. Many psychologists, myself included, now encourage clients to build boundaries around their use of ChatGPT and similar tools. Its seductive 'always-on' availability and friendly tone can unintentionally reinforce unhelpful behaviours, especially for people with anxiety, OCD or trauma-related issues. Reassurance-seeking, for example, is a key feature in OCD and ChatGPT, by design, provides reassurance in abundance. It never asks why you're asking again. It never challenges avoidance. It never says, 'let's sit with this feeling for a moment, and practice the skills we have been working on'. Tran often reworded prompts until the model gave him an answer that 'felt right'. But this constant tailoring meant he wasn't just seeking clarity; he was outsourcing emotional processing. Instead of learning to tolerate distress or explore nuance, he sought AI-generated certainty. Over time, that made it harder for him to trust his own instincts. Beyond psychological concerns, there are real ethical issues. Information shared with ChatGPT isn't protected by the same confidentiality standards as registered Ahpra professionals. Although OpenAI states that data from users is not used to train its models unless permission is given, the sheer volume of fine print in user agreements often goes unread. Users may not realise how their inputs can be stored, analysed and potentially reused. There's also the risk of harmful or false information. These large language models are autoregressive; they predict the next word based on previous patterns. This probabilistic process can lead to 'hallucinations', confident, polished answers that are completely untrue. AI also reflects the biases embedded in its training data. Research shows that generative models can perpetuate and even amplify gender, racial and disability-based stereotypes – not intentionally, but unavoidably. Human therapists also possess clinical skills; we notice when a client's voice trembles, or when their silence might say more than words. This isn't to say AI can't have a place. Like many technological advancements before it, generative AI is here to stay. It may offer useful summaries, psycho-educational content or even support in regions where access to mental health professionals is severely limited. But it must be used carefully, and never as a replacement for relational, regulated care. Tran wasn't wrong to seek help. His instincts to make sense of distress and to communicate more thoughtfully were logical. However, leaning so heavily on to AI meant that his skill development suffered. His partner began noticing a strange detachment in his messages. 'It just didn't sound like you', she later told him. It turned out: it wasn't. She also became frustrated about the lack of accountability in his correspondence to her and this caused more relational friction and communication issues between them. As Tran and I worked together in therapy, we explored what led him to seek certainty in a chatbot. We unpacked his fears of disappointing others, his discomfort with emotional conflict and his belief that perfect words might prevent pain. Over time, he began writing his own responses, sometimes messy, sometimes unsure, but authentically his. Good therapy is relational. It thrives on imperfection, nuance and slow discovery. It involves pattern recognition, accountability and the kind of discomfort that leads to lasting change. A therapist doesn't just answer; they ask and they challenge. They hold space, offer reflection and walk with you, while also offering up an uncomfortable mirror. For Tran, the shift wasn't just about limiting his use of ChatGPT; it was about reclaiming his own voice. In the end, he didn't need a perfect response. He needed to believe that he could navigate life's messiness with curiosity, courage and care – not perfect scripts. Name and identifying details changed to protect client confidentiality Carly Dober is a psychologist living and working in Naarm/Melbourne In Australia, support is available at Beyond Blue on 1300 22 4636, Lifeline on 13 11 14, and at MensLine on 1300 789 978. In the UK, the charity Mind is available on 0300 123 3393 and Childline on 0800 1111. In the US, call or text Mental Health America at 988 or chat
The Independent
3 hours ago
- The Independent
Trump dubbed himself the ‘father of IVF' on the campaign trail. But his pledge to mandate insurance cover has disappeared
Donald Trump's vow to expand in vitro fertilization (IVF) access to millions of Americans is on hold, with White House officials backing away from plans to require Obamacare health plans to include the service as an essential health benefit, the Washington Post reported on Sunday. The Post reported that White House officials have privately moved away from the prospect of pushing for legislation to address the issue despite it being one of Trump's signature campaign promises, citing two persons with knowledge of internal discussions in Trumpworld. A senior administration official also acknowledged to the newspaper that changing Obamacare to force insurers to cover new services would require congressional action, not an executive order. The president has governed largely by executive fiat in his second term as he grapples with a closely-divded Congress and an unruly GOP majority in the House of Representatives. He's used those executive orders to dismantle whole parts of the federal government, including USAID and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). The president even tried to take an axe to the Department of Education, though that battle is still being waged in the courts. The Supreme Court recently cleared the way for Trump to cut roughly a quarter of the agency's staff. But many of Trump's campaign promises lie outside of his ability to influence via the hiring or firing of people and redirection of agency resources or agendas. In 2024, he laid out no direct path for his goal to expand IVF access, only telling voters that insurance companies would be forced to cover it. Still, he proclaimed himself the 'father of IVF' at at Fox News town hall, and promised during an NBC News interview: 'We are going to be, under the Trump administration, we are going to be paying for that treatment. We're going to be mandating that the insurance company pay.' At the time, there was little to no acknowledgment of the fact that many if not most conservatives still oppose the Affordable Care Act and the same healthcare exchanges which Trump was now promising to utilize as he sought to use the power of the federal government to expand healthcare coverage. Now, with the passage of Trump's 'big, beautiful bill' without any provisions expanding IVF access, and with the prospect of further policy gains before the midterms growing dimmer, it's unclear when the White House would have another chance to press the issue in Congress. In February, the president signed an executive order directing his advisers to 'submit to the President a list of policy recommendations on protecting IVF access and aggressively reducing out-of-pocket and health plan costs for IVF treatment.' It's been crickets on the issue since then. In 2024, many of Trump's critics and the media pointed out that the policy would essentially amount to a reversal or at the very least coming in sharp contrast to the first Trump administration's efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act, which ended in failure, and a contradiction of the conservative view that government should not exercise that level of control over Americans' health care decisions. The president's promise thrilled his party's natalists, embodied by Vice President JD Vance and an army of right-wing immigration hawks who fear the changing American demographics brought on as a result of falling birth rates and high levels of migration. It also wowed some of his Democratic and left-leaning critics, who see the policy as a means of furthering their goal of expanding access to healthcare for poorer Americans. For Vance, the issue of declining U.S. birth rates predates his MAGA heel-turn. In 2019, he told a gathering of conservatives in Washington: 'Our people aren't having enough children to replace themselves. That should bother us.' 'We want babies not just because they are economically useful. We want more babies because children are good. And we believe children are good, because we are not sociopaths,' the future vice president added at the time. Two years later, he'd tell a right-leaning podcast: 'I think we have to go to war against the anti-child ideology that exists in our country.' During the 2024 campaign, those views emerged again as Vance attacked Democrats as 'childless cat ladies' and leaned heavily into attacking the left for supposedly being anti-family. Progressives fought back, pointing to efforts to expand the child tax credit and other benefits that aid young families under Joe Biden and other Democratic administrations, including the passage of Barack Obama's signature law: the Affordable Care Act.
Daily Mail
3 hours ago
- Daily Mail
Musk open to merger between his company xAI and Apple
Elon Musk has been openly hinting at a historic merger in the business world, suggesting that his company xAI should partner with tech giant Apple. Musk's company is the corporate face of his popular AI chatbot Grok, which functions similarly to competitors like ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Copilot. Meanwhile, Apple has struggled to bring its own AI programs to consumers, notably delaying improvements to the Siri voice assistant until 2026. Venture capitalists started openly speculating this month that Musk and Apple make the perfect power couple in the AI world, with xAI bringing Grok to even more people using iPhones through this proposed partnership. On the All-In Podcast, investor Gavin Baker called xAI's Grok4 'the best product' in terms of AI chatbots right now, but added that 'the best product doesn't always win in technology.' 'I think there is solid industrial logic for a partnership. You could have Apple Grok, Safe Grok, whatever you want to call it,' said Baker, the Chief Investment Officer of Atreides Management LP, in a video posted to X on July 19. Musk quickly replied to the comments, saying 'Interesting idea.' The billionaire then added 'I hope so!' while responding to another post suggesting that Apple partnering with xAI was a better option than competitors like Anthropic. A partnership between the two companies could integrate xAI's Grok chatbot into Apple's devices, such as iPhones, iPads, and Macs, potentially replacing or augmenting Siri. A relationship between Musk's AI team and the $3.1 trillion Apple could also lead to smarter, more accurate AI assistants, addressing Apple's ongoing issues with AI development. Grok launched in 2023 as Musk's alternative to other chatbot which had sparked controversy for provided allegedly biased answers and citing information that had been made up. xAI has said that Grok is "designed to answer questions with a bit of wit," and the program has generally drawn widespread praise for its quick and accurate answers to prompts. Just just weeks ago, however, Grok 4 was engulfed in controversy for repeating far-right hate speech and white nationalist talking points about politics, race, and recent news events. Multiple users reported on July 8 and July 9 that Grok echoed anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, including claims that Jewish people controlled Hollywood, promoted hatred toward White people, and should be imprisoned in camps. In a post on X, xAI replied to these concerns: 'We are aware of recent posts made by Grok and are actively working to remove the inappropriate posts. Since being made aware of the content, xAI has taken action to ban hate speech before Grok posts on X,' the company added. Baker added that the deal Musk has been infatuated with would benefit xAI's reach significantly as well, since OpenAI's ChatGPT is currently used by nearly 800 million weekly active users, according to Demandsage. 'There's been a lot of news about Apple thinking about buying Perplexity or Mistral, but that's just a Band-Aid. Those companies don't get Apple what they need,' Baker said. To the investor's point, Perplexity AI is a search-engine-style AI company known for information retrieval and fact-finding tasks. It's currently valued at $18 billion. Mistral AI is a French AI firm valued at roughly $6.2 billion that's focused on easy-to-use, open-source language models. They've worked with partners like Cisco to help with tasks like research and automation. On the other hand, xAI and its Grok chatbot stand out with a current valuation of up to $200 billion and a distribution reaching 35.1 million monthly active users. Baker explained that 'xAI and Apple are natural partners,' especially after OpenAI made a multi-billion-dollar deal to create new devices that use their AI technology without relying on the iPhone. In May, OpenAI bought former Apple designer Jony Ive's hardware startup for a reported $6.5 billion. That deal brought Ive on as the AI company's new creative head, with the vision of building specialized gadgets that can use generative AI and ChatGPT without needing a smartphone or computer. While a deal between xAI and Apple is still only speculation, Musk recently turned heads by announcing that xAI was working on a new project called 'Baby Grok' which would be a new app designed to provide 'kid-friendly content.'
