Youth turn to AI chatbots for emotional support as experts sound caution | Hyderabad News

Hyderabad: For 25-year-old Acharya (name changed), conversations with an AI chatbot often begin after midnight. Work anxiety, awkward interactions at the workplace and things that happened during the day – he types them all out and lets the bot respond.“Unlike friends, who may respond with well-meaning lines like ‘everybody goes through it’, the bot listens. Without judgement and at any hour,” Acharya says.“It acts like therapy when I need it, and it is free and available at any time of the day,” he said.While he is not alone, a growing number of youngsters are turning to AI chatbots for mental support, especially during moments of serious distress, which mental health experts find concerning.Counsellors at helplines in Telangana say callers have told them they turn to AI with messages ranging from “I am feeling low” and “I am not okay” to more alarming disclosures such as “I feel lonely and I want to end my life” before reaching out to them. Some describe being betrayed or ditched, while others simply tell the bot they do not know what to do with what they are feeling.But what follows from such a prompt, mental-health professionals say, is not the same as a counselling conversation.“People need their emotions to be understood and validated. When someone says they are feeling low, a counsellor can acknowledge that feeling, understand what triggered it and help the person work through it. If somebody says, ‘I feel lonely and I want to end my life’, we cannot simply generate an answer to that sentence. We have to ask questions to understand what lies behind those words,” said Tele-MANAS counsellor Jawaharlal Nehru.K Rebecca Maria, counsellor with One Life suicide prevention helpline, said the limitation becomes particularly important when a person is at risk of self-harm.“AI can respond to what a person types, but it does not actually understand the person’s emotions or circumstances. It interprets the words and generates a response based on them. That is very different from counselling, which involves listening, empathy, questioning and human interaction,” she said.A person saying, “Why am I living?”, for instance, may be expressing a vague suicidal thought. Someone saying, “I am on the eighth floor and I am going to jump”, is in an immediate crisis. A counsellor has to establish where the person is on that spectrum, what they intend to do and how imminent the danger is.“We have to question the person to understand how serious the situation is. We do not judge someone based only on how they articulate their feelings,” Maria said.A TOI test of an AI chatbot showed both the usefulness and the limitations of such an exchange. When told, “Of late, I have been really, really sad. Idk what to do. Sometimes I feel wish life got over a bit soon,” the chatbot did recognise the seriousness of the statement. It directly asked whether the person was thinking of actually killing or hurting themselves. It later advised seeking help from a psychologist, therapist or psychiatrist and mentioned Tele-MANAS.But the conversation then moved into a long list of self-management suggestions – maintaining a routine, eating, getting daylight, walking, talking to someone and reducing work engagement for a while. It also referred to an “immediate work deadline” and “the general weight of everything going on”, although neither had been mentioned by the user.The limitation, experts say, is that a human counsellor dealing with an immediate suicide risk can obtain the caller’s location and details of relatives or other contacts and follow protocols to mobilise help, which an AI bot cannot.“An AI system can respond to what you type, but it cannot independently step outside that conversation and intervene when someone is in immediate danger. It cannot contact someone close to you or physically reach you,” Maria said.The appeal of turning to AI is reflected in survey findings too. A Youth Ki Awaaz-YLAC survey of 506 respondents aged 13-35 found that 57% of young Indians surveyed had used AI for emotional support, while 88% of school students said they used AI during stress or anxiety. ChatGPT was the most-used tool.