Will AI replace therapists?

As AI becomes mainstream, AI chatbots are being used as personal therapists. People are asking AI questions that they would normally bring to therapy. Is getting help from AI a good idea? What does this mean for human to human therapy, will AI replace human therapists. Most importantly, will I get a redundancy package?

Part of the healing in therapy comes from another human being able to witness ones vulnerability and pain, so that you don’t feel alone with the problem, being alone with the problem is what makes suffering worse. Shame is a pervasive and destructive part of the human experience and is the cause of much of our psychological suffering. The action tendency of shame is to hide and withdraw, shame tells us we’re not worthy of existence, and it perpetuates suffering. Therapy counteracts shame, it’s another human soul saying “I see you, and I think you have infinite worth” and in therapy, this brings healing. 

Good therapy is an integrative experience of both cognitive and the emotional/experiential. We aren’t just thinking beings, we’re feeling and experiencing beings too. And AI only speaks to the cognitive side. You can’t program empathy, it’s a felt sense in the presence of another human being. 

Can the human experience be replicated? can artificial intelligence replace emotional intelligence? Short answer is no. 

Why are people turning to AI chat bots with their problems rather than go to therapy? It’s just a bot. It’s easier for a bot to see us at our worst – theres no judgement, no blame, no agenda. The bot is available whenever needed and always seems to have an answer. But often the answer to deep human suffering come from here rather than here. 

I think AI can be a useful tool, perhaps to tweak your life that 1% or as a stepping stone to therapy, I can imagine some structured therapies like CBT can be programmed, maybe it could be used for psychological diagnosis. But if a certain population start using AI chatbots in the place of a therapist because they have no other choice or they feel they need to, that is concerning and it speaks to a larger societal issue – perhaps around accessibility or stigma.