The ascent of the AI therapist

AI-based therapists could transform humanity into predictable patterns, thus sacrificing the intimate, personal care expected of traditional human therapists. “The logic of PAI leads to a future in which we may all find ourselves patients in an algorithmic asylum run by digital guardians,” Oberhaus writes. “In an algorithmic shelter, there is no need to have bars on the windows or white-lined rooms because there is no possibility of escape. The shelter is already everywhere – in your homes and offices, schools and hospitals, courtrooms and barracks. Wherever there is an Internet connection, the shelter is waiting.”

Eoin Fullam, a researcher who studies the intersection between technology and mental health, echoes some of the same concerns in… Chatbot therapy: A critical analysis of artificial intelligence mental health therapy. A solid academic primer, this book analyzes the assumptions underpinning the automated manipulations offered by AI chatbots and the way capitalist incentives can subvert this type of tool.

Fullam notes that the capitalist mentality behind new technologies “often leads to questionable, illicit, and illegal business practices, where customer interests become secondary to strategies for market dominance.”

But this does not mean that makers of therapeutic robots “will inevitably engage in nefarious activities that conflict with the interests of users in their quest for market dominance,” Fullam wrote.

But he points out that the success of AI therapy depends on motivations that are inseparable from making money and healing people. In this logic, exploitation and therapy feed each other: every digital therapy session generates data, and this data feeds the system that profits when unpaid users seek care. The more effective the treatment appears, the more the cycle reinforces itself, making it difficult to distinguish between care and commodification. “The more users leverage the app in terms of therapy or other mental health intervention, the more they will be exploited,” he writes.

This economic and psychological sense of Roboros—the snake eating its own tail—is a central metaphor in secthe debut novel by Fred Lonzer, an author with a research background in artificial intelligence.

It is described as “a boy-meets-girl-meets-AI psychotherapist story.” sec It follows Adrian, a young man from London who makes his living writing rap lyrics, in his romance with Maquie, a professional entrepreneur with a knack for spotting profitable technologies at the experimental stage.

Celadon Books, 2025

The title refers to a brilliant AI-powered commercial wizard named Sike, uploaded to smart glasses, which Adrian uses to interrogate his myriad fears. “When I signed up for Sike, we set up my dashboard, a black board as wide as an airplane cockpit that displays my daily ‘vitals,’” Adrian recounts. “Sike can analyze the way you walk, the way you make eye contact, the things you talk about, the things you wear, the number of times you pee, poop, laugh, cry, kiss, lie, whine, cough.”