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Can AI therapists really be an alternative to human help?

With NHS mental health waitlists at record highs, are chatbots a possible solution?

Hamed Haddadi, professor of human-centred systems at Imperial College London, likens these chatbots to an "inexperienced therapist", and points out that humans with decades of experience will be able to engage and "read" their patient based on many things, while bots are forced to go on text alone. His experiences chime with a recent study by Dartmouth College researchers looking at the impact of chatbots on people diagnosed with anxiety, depression or an eating disorder, versus a control group with the same conditions. In addition, Wysa has data processing agreements in place with external AI providers to ensure that no user conversations are used to train third-party large language models."

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