{"id":235578,"date":"2026-01-16T01:38:35","date_gmt":"2026-01-16T01:38:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/235578\/"},"modified":"2026-01-16T01:38:35","modified_gmt":"2026-01-16T01:38:35","slug":"self-help-ghouls-are-charging-people-absurd-prices-to-talk-to-impersonator-chatbots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/235578\/","title":{"rendered":"Self-Help Ghouls Are Charging People Absurd Prices to Talk to Impersonator Chatbots"},"content":{"rendered":"

Against the recommendations<\/a> of experts and professionals, millions of people<\/a> use AI chatbots for emotional support and advice. These are often people who are in vulnerable times in their lives, perhaps unable to pay out of pocket for the type of help and support they need. The self-help industry is apparently aware of this trend, has seen this demographic of people in search of help, and collectively said, \u201cYou know, we can probably make some cash off these people.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Wall Street Journal<\/a> reports that there is a trend of gurus creating chatbots that replicate their style and voice, allowing people to \u201ctalk\u201d to an AI-powered recreation of them to get \u201cpersonalized\u201d advice in the style of their life coach of choice. The bots are loaded up with all of the experts\u2019 books, lectures, and interviews, and can spit out answers to questions in the style of the author. All you have to do is pay a monthly subscription to access it all.<\/p>\n

How much it\u2019ll cost you depends on the expert. Per WSJ<\/a>, dating coach Matthew Hussey charges people $39 per month for \u201cMatthew AI,\u201d which has reportedly already had over one million conversations, and users have spent 1.9 million minutes talking to it via voice chat. Tony Robbins will hit you for $99 per month for his life coach bot\u2014but you can get started with an introductory rate of $0.99 for the first 14 days! Spiritual teacher David Ghiyam offers a sliding scale option so people can talk to an AI version of him for just $1 per month, which certainly beats paying his private coaching rate of $15,000 per hour.<\/p>\n

Whether any of these tools actually work for the people paying for the services, you\u2019d have to ask them. Self-help can have its place, though the industry is undoubtedly filled with bunk research and bad advice<\/a>. But one thing is for sure: It\u2019s working great for the gurus.<\/p>\n

Hussey told the Wall Street Journal<\/a>, \u201cI literally can\u2019t do what it is doing,\u201d which is true in the sense that he can\u2019t speak to people at the scale that his chatbot can. But it\u2019s also literally not doing what he is doing. Whatever you may think of the validity of a dating coach, the selling point is getting personalized advice based on your situation and their experience. A chatbot simulates that, sure, but it actually doesn\u2019t know anything about you, your relationship, or relationships broadly. It is a chatbot. It can sound like Hussey and recreate Hussey\u2019s words, but it doesn\u2019t know what any of them mean.<\/p>\n

Gabby Bernstein, a spiritual teacher who has come under fire<\/a> in the past for pseudo-scientific claims, charges $199 a year for her Gabby AI, made the case that the chatbot is effectively offering herself to the world. \u201cIt\u2019s backed with 20 years of books, lectures, workshops and meditations. So it\u2019s me, it\u2019s my message, and only I could control that,\u201d she told WSJ. Though, notably, she doesn\u2019t control that. She\u2019s turned it over to Delphi AI, a venture capital-backed startup that has created an entire micro-industry out of selling self-help AI as a service.<\/p>\n

Bernstein does perhaps sum up the whole situation best, albeit likely by accident. \u201cIf I don\u2019t do it, someone else is going to do it in a way that\u2019s not in alignment with my truth,\u201d she told WSJ. You could simplify that to \u201cIf I don\u2019t do it, someone else is going to get these people\u2019s money,\u201d and it wouldn\u2019t fundamentally change the meaning. Need proof? Tony Robbins sued a company<\/a> that made a chatbot using his likeness, then turned around and launched his own.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Against the recommendations of experts and professionals, millions of people use AI chatbots for emotional support and advice.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":235579,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[365,363,364,4035,22626,111,139,69,41933,145],"class_list":["post-235578","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-chatbots","tag-emerging-technologies","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-self-help","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235578","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=235578"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235578\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/235579"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=235578"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=235578"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=235578"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}