blog post<\/a> citing a collaboration between the company and MIT Media Lab to study \u201chow AI use that involves emotional engagement\u2014what we call affective use\u2014can impact users\u2019 well-being.\u201d<\/p>\nFor Kate, ChatGPT is a sounding board without any needs, schedule, obligations, or problems of its own. She has good friends, and a sister she\u2019s close with, but it\u2019s not the same. \u201cIf I were texting them the amount of times I was prompting ChatGPT, I’d blow up their phone,\u201d she says. \u201cIt wouldn’t really be fair. I don’t need to feel shame around blowing up ChatGPT with my asks, my emotional needs.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI was just like, hey, did she break up with me?\u201d<\/p>\n
Andrew, who uses ChatGPT to navigate relationships.<\/p>\n
Andrew, a 36-year-old man living in Seattle, has increasingly turned to ChatGPT for personal needs after a tough chapter with his family. While he doesn\u2019t treat his ChatGPT use \u201clike a dirty secret,\u201d he\u2019s also not especially forthcoming about it. \u201cI haven’t had a lot of success finding a therapist that I mesh with,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd not that ChatGPT by any stretch is a true replacement for a therapist, but to be perfectly honest, sometimes you just need someone to talk to about something sitting right on the front of your brain.\u201d<\/p>\n
Andrew had previously used ChatGPT for mundane tasks like meal planning or book summaries. The day before Valentine\u2019s Day, his then girlfriend broke up with him via text message. At first, he wasn\u2019t completely sure he\u2019d been dumped. \u201cI think between us there was just always kind of a disconnect in the way we communicated,\u201d he says. The text \u201cdidn’t actually say, \u2018Hey, I’m breaking up with you\u2019 in any clear way.\u201d<\/p>\n
Puzzled, he plugged the message into ChatGPT. \u201cI was just like, hey, did she break up with me? Can you help me understand what’s going on?\u201d ChatGPT didn\u2019t offer much clarity. \u201cI guess it was maybe validating, because it was just as confused as I was.\u201d<\/p>\n
Andrew has group chats with close friends that he would typically turn to in order to talk through his problems, but he didn\u2019t want to burden them. \u201cMaybe they don’t need to hear Andrew\u2019s whining about his crappy dating life,\u201d he says. \u201cI’m kind of using this as a way to kick the tires on the conversation before I really kind of get ready to go out and ask my friends about a certain situation.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIf I were texting them the amount of times I was prompting ChatGPT, I’d blow up their phone.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kate, a ChatGPT user<\/p>\n
In addition to the emotional and social complexities of working out problems via AI, the level of intimate information some users are feeding to ChatGPT raises serious privacy concerns. Should chats ever be leaked, or if people\u2019s data is used in an unethical way, it\u2019s more than just passwords or emails on the line.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have honestly thought about it,\u201d Kate says, when asked why she trusts the service with private details of her life. \u201cOh my God, if someone just saw my prompt history\u2014you could draw crazy assumptions around who you are, what you worry about, or whatever else.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kate\u2019s real-life therapist is not a fan of her ChatGPT use. \u201cShe’s like, \u2018Kate, promise me you’ll never…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":115350,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3163],"tags":[323,1942,8441,1315,218,222,53,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-115349","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-chatbots","11":"tag-chatgpt","12":"tag-mental-health","13":"tag-psychology","14":"tag-technology","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114536629133678016","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115349","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=115349"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115349\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/115350"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=115349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=115349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=115349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}