Family psychologists will soon be unnecessary: research reveals an unexpected function of AI

A new study has shown that family therapy can be conducted using ChatGPT. It means that AI can solve romantic problems faced by couples.

Experts say that people can rarely distinguish between couples therapy from a professional and advice provided by AI. In fact, answers to relationship problems written by ChatGPT were usually rated even higher than advice from key psychotherapy principles, DailyMail reports.

The researchers asked 830 people, a fifth of whom had previously undergone couples therapy, to view responses to relationship problems provided by a therapist or AI. They had to determine whether they thought the response was from a human expert or an AI tool.

People correctly identified the answer as coming from a therapist only 56 percent of the time, and correctly guessed that the author was a ChatGPT only 51 percent of the time, experts say.

The authors of the study, led by Ohio State University and Hatch Data and Mental Health, concluded that AI can help improve therapy.

In the study, ChatGPT was pitted against 13 experts, including clinical psychologists, counseling psychologists, marriage and family therapists, and a psychiatrist.

The responses of the AI and therapists were evaluated according to whether they were caring and seemed to understand the person, whether they were appropriate for different environments and cultures, whether they were appropriate for the therapeutic environment, and what a good therapist would say.

ChatGPT scored higher on these psychotherapy principles than the experts. Also, AI's guidance for couples was found to be more positive, the researchers say.

However, the authors note that this was only a hypothetical therapy. They also say that if the AI were allowed to be too "creative" and innovative in its responses, with fewer rules in its training, it risks harming people struggling with serious problems.

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