Loneliness and mental health illnesses are rising in the US, while access to care dwindles — so a lot of people are turning to chatbots. Do chatbots work for therapy?

More like this: The Collective Intelligence Project w/ Divya Siddarth and Zarinah Agnew

Why are individuals are confiding in chatbots over qualified human therapists? Stevie Chancellor explains why an LLM can’t replace a therapeutic relationship — but often there’s just no other choice. Turns out the chatbots designed specifically for therapy are even worse than general models like ChatGPT; Stevie shares her ideas on how LLMs could potentially be used — safely — for therapeutic support. This is really helpful primer on how to evaluate chatbots for specific, human-replacing tasks.

Further reading & resources:

• Stevie’s paper on whether replacing therapists with LLMs is even possible (it’s not)
• See the research on Github
• People are Losing Their Loved Ones to AI-Fuelled Spiritual Fantasies — Rolling Stone (May 2025)
• Silicon Valley VC Geoff Lewis becomes convinced that ChatGPT is telling him government secrets from the future
• Loneliness considered a public health epidemic according to the APA
• FTC orders online therapy company BetterHelp to pay damages of $7.8m
• Delta plans to use AI in ticket pricing draws fire from US lawmakers — Reuters July 2025

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