{"id":791024,"date":"2026-07-29T09:16:18","date_gmt":"2026-07-29T09:16:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/791024\/"},"modified":"2026-07-29T09:16:18","modified_gmt":"2026-07-29T09:16:18","slug":"what-happens-when-ai-chatbots-handle-a-mental-health-crisis-consider-this-from-npr-npr","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/791024\/","title":{"rendered":"What happens when AI chatbots handle a mental health crisis? : Consider This from NPR : NPR"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>            <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1785316578_139_.jpeg\" data-template=\"https:\/\/npr.brightspotcdn.com\/dims3\/default\/strip\/false\/crop\/5000x2813+0+0\/resize\/{width}\/quality\/{quality}\/format\/{format}\/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F09%2Fcd%2F4642e4504188a8956e5c849e9e88%2F569ecf70-6a3e-4464-9030-9a82931e8672.jpg\" class=\"img\" alt=\"\" fetchpriority=\"high\"\/><\/p>\n<p>\n                In this photo illustration a virtual friend is seen on the screen of an iPhone on April 30, 2020, in Arlington, Virginia. &#8211; &#8220;It&#8217;s so good to hear your voice.&#8221; &#8220;I was worried about you.&#8221; &#8220;What would you like to do today?&#8221; This might sound like ordinary banter between friends. But in these cases, the &#8220;friend&#8221; speaking was a chatbot created with artificial intelligence.<\/p>\n<p>                    Olivier Douliery\/AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>                hide caption\n            <\/p>\n<p>              toggle caption<\/p>\n<p>        Olivier Douliery\/AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>Artificial intelligence is transforming how we gather information and communicate with one another.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s also changing how some people seek out mental health care.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>But what happens when this sophisticated technology is used to deal with serious mental health issues?<\/p>\n<p>For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for Consider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Email us at considerthis@npr.org.<\/p>\n<p>This episode was produced by Jason Fuller, with audio engineering by Ted Mebane and Valentina Rodriguez Sanchez. Our director is Jonas Adams.<\/p>\n<p>It was edited by Diane Webber and Tinbete Ermyas.<\/p>\n<p>Our interim executive producer is Courtney Dorning.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In this photo illustration a virtual friend is seen on the screen of an iPhone on April 30,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":791025,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[97,259,260],"class_list":["post-791024","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mental-health","tag-health","tag-mental-health","tag-mentalhealth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/791024","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=791024"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/791024\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/791025"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=791024"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=791024"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=791024"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}