Previously submitted to: JMIR Mental Health (no longer under consideration since Apr 09, 2025)
Date Submitted: Apr 8, 2025
Open Peer Review Period: Apr 9, 2025 - Apr 9, 2025
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AI Technologies and Therapy: The Use of AI devices in Emotional Management Therapy in Contemporary Society Today.
ABSTRACT
Background:
Today’s social era is inundated with various types artificial intelligence (AI) and chatbot technologies. With the coming of the digital era, society has become more connected to others yet more disconnected from humanity in a way. AI has not taken over in-person and human contact completely, however it has provided an alternative solution or option towards human contact for some. Within these social and digital societies much has adapted, whereby the world of therapy and therapeutic attempts has also undergone transitions to being able to service patient needs offering telehealth and virtual sessions. With the rise in global loneliness and decreased desire for social interaction, such begs the question whether people lend their trust towards human or AI technologies such as chatbot services when seeking therapy.
Objective:
The main premise of this paper is to investigate whether or not AI technologies provide an alternative medium to providing efficient and rational therapeutic rehabilitation in better healing humans than by humans. This idea will be explored throughout the rest of this paper by discussing the parameters of AI technologies, telehealth, and robotic therapy in order to hopefully come to a conclusion on the topic.
Methods:
This article reviews a number of research studies investigating the use of telehealth technologies in providing therapy and counselling care towards patients. This review also makes use of a Netflix reality television show to demonstrate the use of AI technologies in rendering therapy and counselling services.
Results:
Results from this review find that patients would seem to prefer AI technologies.
Conclusions:
It would seem that patients find a comfort in chatbot responses derived from AI technology devices when seeking help. Does this have to do with the idea of information precision, or perhaps the lack of trust in humans? AI technology in therapeutic approaches showcases an interesting link between wanting to have human emotions explained yet resorting towards a robotic device that is supposedly not able to feel or conceive human emotions; but rather simply explain to humans what they are programmed to search for and/or respond with based on the set algorithm. All-in-all, this review evaluates data found in various examples investigating AI technology and their use in therapeutic attempts towards emotions as something that seems to be ostensibly preferred amongst patients in current modern-day contemporary society. Albeit, the success rate of patient rehabilitation using AI technology versus human led interventions must be better understood in comparison to each other as well. Clinical Trial: None.
Citation
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