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  • NEWS FEATURE

Is the world ready for ChatGPT therapists?

The current landscape of mobile mental-health apps is the result of a 70-year search to automate therapy. Now, advanced AIs pose fresh ethical questions.
  1. Ian Graber-Stiehl

    1. Ian Graber-Stiehl is a science writer in Chicago, Illinois.

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Cartoon of a mobile phone as a psychotherapist surrounded by several other mobile-phone patients

Illustration by Fabio Buonocore

Since 2015, Koko, a mobile mental-health app, has tried to provide crowdsourced support for people in need. Text the app to say that you’re feeling guilty about a work issue, and an empathetic response will come through in a few minutes — clumsy perhaps, but unmistakably human — to suggest some positive coping strategies.

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Nature 617, 22-24 (2023)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-023-01473-4

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