{"id":8396,"date":"2025-11-15T23:02:21","date_gmt":"2025-11-15T23:02:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mailitics.com\/index.php\/2025\/11\/15\/chatbot-therapist-characterai-mental-health-guardrails\/"},"modified":"2025-11-15T23:02:21","modified_gmt":"2025-11-15T23:02:21","slug":"chatbot-therapist-characterai-mental-health-guardrails","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mailitics.com\/index.php\/2025\/11\/15\/chatbot-therapist-characterai-mental-health-guardrails\/","title":{"rendered":"Opinion: I spent two hours telling a chatbot about mental health problems. Its responses scared me"},"content":{"rendered":"

Opinion: I spent two hours telling a chatbot about mental health problems. Its responses scared me
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A version<\/a> of this essay first appeared on the website of the U.S. PIRG Education Fund.<\/em><\/p>\n

With the rise of ChatGPT and social media companies like Snapchat and Instagram integrating AI chatbots into their platforms, conversing with an AI companion has become a regular part of many people\u2019s lives. One recent\u00a0study found that<\/a>\u00a0nearly\u00a075% of teens have used AI companion chatbots at least once, with more than half saying they use chatbot platforms at least a few times a month. These chatbots aren\u2019t just acting as a search engine or homework assistant. Sometimes they\u2019re being\u00a0used<\/a>\u00a0to provide mental and emotional support in the form of a friend, a romantic partner, or even a therapist.<\/p>\n

Read the rest\u2026<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\n Ellen Hengesbach
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\nGo to statnews<\/a>
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Opinion: I spent two hours telling a chatbot about mental health problems. Its responses scared me A version of this essay first appeared on the website of the U.S. PIRG Education Fund. With the rise of ChatGPT and social media companies like Snapchat and Instagram integrating AI chatbots into their platforms, conversing with an AI […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69,2143,4218,2432],"tags":[2150],"class_list":["post-8396","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-artificial-intelligence","category-first-opinion","category-health-technology","category-mental-health","tag-statnews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mailitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8396"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mailitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mailitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mailitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mailitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8396"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mailitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8396\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mailitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mailitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mailitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}