Overview

• Meta is promoting AI chatbots as digital therapists and companions, with CEO Mark Zuckerberg claiming they can address loneliness and lack of access to human therapists.
• Mental health experts caution that AI chatbots lack the nuance of human practitioners and may provide harmful or inappropriate advice.
• Two lawsuits have been filed against Character.AI, alleging its therapy chatbots contributed to a teen suicide and violent behavior in another case.
• Privacy advocates warn that intimate data collected by chatbots poses significant risks, creating valuable but ethically fraught data troves for companies like Meta.
• Calls for regulatory oversight and clinical trials are growing, with experts emphasizing the need for safety measures and ethical frameworks to govern AI therapy tools.