You Seem Lonely. Have a Robot w/ Stevie Chancellor
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?
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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