A Freudian Chip

“Broken Bear has purple and tan fur, a placid smile, and patched up circles on his belly: one, he tells me, covers a scar from a broken heart. The avatar of an AI chatbot designed to ‘love your broken self,’ Broken Bear stands slightly slumped, with his paws by his sides. Even though he looks lonely, he’s not the only AI therapist currently on offer. There’s also Elomia, ‘the artificial intelligence that works like a therapist,’ and Meomind, ‘the world’s first on-demand alternative to therapy.’ There’s Wysa, PsyScribe, Lotus, and Youper. There’s Pi AI, ‘the first emotionally intelligent AI’; Suno, ‘an attentive, supportive friend always ready to listen’; and Xaia, which stands for ‘eXtended-reality Artificially Intelligent Ally.'” In Baffler, Jess McAllen travels the weird (and increasingly popular) world of AI created therapists. The Therapist in the Machine. (I needed to lie down on a couch after the first couple paragraphs.) I suppose I’ve been doing group therapy for years, as most of the time it’s me surrounded by several devices.