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Ricky Thompson

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If the technology advances enough will people ever be willing to use an artificial Intelligence machine as a counsellor?

If artificial intelligence ever progressed to the point where it was intellectually and emotionally human-like could you ever imagine having computers being used as pyschotherapists/counsellors?

If yes, what do you think would be the pluses?

If no, what would prevent people from doing so?

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  • Barry Palmer 50+

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    Jun 21 2012: Hi Ricky,

    I can't give you a reference, but this has already been done, and attracted many users. Strange but true.
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      Ricky Thompson

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      Jun 25 2012: Hi Barry.

      I don't doubt that something simlar or proto-typey has already been done. For instance, I was listening to the BBC World Service this week and they described this game, Sparx, which could be said to be somewhere in the general vicinity of what I described. http://sparx.org.nz/ ...

      ...but I'm not sure how without real A.I. it could have really been done in a way that really reflects my question. After all, a patient receiving therapy needs to feel some level of empathy or sympathy, no matter how neutral the therapist attempts to be - this is something that computers are not yet capable of evincing from humans as we do not believe them to be sentient.

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