As AI becomes more prevalent in everyday life, students and experts have expressed concern with growing trends of using it to fulfill social and emotional needs.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The AI industry has experienced massive growth<\/a> over the past two years, including the introduction of AI companionship models. These systems, including Friend AI<\/a> and Talkie AI<\/a>, aim to provide users with a chatbot that\u2019s available anytime to provide advice and emotional support.\u00a0<\/p>\n Many people are beginning to feel the real-world effects of this kind of AI usage. This August, OpenAI<\/a> \u2014 the developer behind ChatGPT \u2014 is facing a lawsuit<\/a> from parents alleging the model encouraged their late son\u2019s suicide.<\/p>\n Ran An, a sixth-year developmental psychology Ph.D. candidate with research focused on AI, said AI inherently lacks the ability to create genuine connections, making it inadequate as any sort of companion.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cAI can simulate empathy and generate supportive responses, but it doesn\u2019t actually feel or form genuine attachments,\u201d An said. \u201cEmotional connection relies on shared human experiences \u2014 things like empathy, vulnerability and mutual understanding \u2014 which AI simply cannot replicate.\u201d<\/p>\n An believes it\u2019s especially important for young people to make authentic connections with others, and AI should not be used as a replacement.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t think AI should fulfill an emotional role in young people\u2019s lives. Children and adolescents need real-human relationships \u2014 family, friends, teachers \u2014 to develop emotional understanding and empathy,\u201d An said. \u201cIt\u2019s important to treat AI as a supplementary tool, not a substitute for connection.\u201d<\/p>\n An discussed the importance of academic institutions teaching responsible AI use, which is one of her research\u2019s main focuses.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI think we\u2019re at a stage where institutions and educators need to help students develop AI literacy \u2014 understanding how to use it critically and ethically, rather than just efficiently,\u201d An said.<\/p>\n Hooman Rashidi, associate dean of AI in medicine, believes the rise of student AI use<\/a> is simply due to increased accessibility.<\/p>\n \u201cThe delivery platform that is being shown to the audience is a lot more user-friendly than it used to be,\u201d Rashidi said. \u201cThis is just the next phase of things we\u2019ve been doing for the past few decades, except they\u2019ve now accelerated dramatically.\u201d<\/p>\n Rashidi said he feels dependence on AI could have a negative mental health effect if used excessively for personal issues or otherwise improperly.<\/p>\n \u201cThese [AIs] have a lot of capabilities and a lot of strengths, but they also have lots of limitations. There\u2019s lots of biases to overcome,\u201d Rashidi said. \u201cThere\u2019s dependencies that people may want to minimize because they may seem too real.\u201d<\/p>\n Another concern Rashidi expressed was younger people becoming dependent on AI, which he feels could lead to negative effects in the long term.<\/p>\n \u201cAs we adopt these tools, the critical thinking element is now being passed on partially to some generative AI tools,\u201d Rashidi said. \u201cWhat\u2019s going to happen to these different generations that are coming through is they become pathologically dependent on certain AI frameworks.\u201d<\/p>\n Abby Braun, a senior neuroscience major, discussed her personal AI usage, which mostly includes assistance with schoolwork and other academic help.<\/p>\n \u201cI really like AI, personally,\u201d Braun said. \u201cIt helps me with my schoolwork, and it\u2019s a good tool. Sometimes, I use it to outline an essay, and I\u2019ve been involved with a lot of research recently, so I\u2019ve been having it help me find better sources.\u201d<\/p>\n Although she applies AI frequently in her academics, Braun said she would never consider using it to fulfill any emotional needs.<\/p>\n \u201cI would never use that in my life,\u201d Braun said. \u201cI don\u2019t need to seek comfort in a fake chatbot. I think that\u2019s a little bit weird, and it could lead to a lot of construed emotions.\u201d<\/p>\n Nick Starace, a senior electrical engineering major, also said he uses AI to assist in his schoolwork, specifically for its explanations of more difficult concepts.<\/p>\n \u201cI use AI to help me learn material \u2014 maybe sometimes to assist with assignments, but mostly for understanding, since it can articulate questions and subjects that are a little more dense.\u201d<\/p>\n Starace said he disagrees with AI being used as stand-in for therapy, specifically due to its inhuman nature.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI think therapy should be something intimate, and something synthetic like AI isn\u2019t helping to cure any problems,\u201d Starace said. \u201cI\u2019m really not a fan of it at all.\u201d<\/p>\n Yanshan Wang, leader of the Pitt Natural Language Processing and Artificial Intelligence Innovation Laboratory<\/a>, said he feels that personal connections between humans and AI have applicability within health care, specifically in diagnosing mental health conditions.<\/p>\n \u201cIn health care, I think it is a useful tool to detect depression and a lot of mental health disorders,\u201d Wang said. \u201cPeople can use the [AI\u2019s] response in a responsible way and develop AI algorithms to detect mental health disorders. Those tools are really powerful to improve and to actually address the current mental health crisis<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n Wang singled out older adults as a population who could benefit from AI connections that provide a sense of companionship and happiness.<\/p>\n \u201cA lot of old adults are living alone, and they are quite lonely and need some emotional support. If they can talk with some of the AI companions and share their life stories, then it could improve their emotions,\u201d Wang said.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As AI becomes more prevalent in everyday life, students and experts have expressed concern with growing trends of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27844,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[278,14241,47,73,75,74],"class_list":{"0":"post-27843","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pittsburgh","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-chatgpt","10":"tag-mental-health","11":"tag-pittsburgh","12":"tag-pittsburgh-headlines","13":"tag-pittsburgh-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27843","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27843"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27843\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27844"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27843"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27843"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27843"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}