https://goo.gl/mskJZX
My therapist wanted to explain a few things during our first online session:
“I'm going to check in with you at random times. If you can't respond straight away, don't sweat it. Just come back to me when you're ready. I'll check in daily.”
“Daily?” I asked.
“Yup! It shouldn't take longer than a couple minutes. Can you handle that?
“Yes, I can,” I answered.
There was a little more back-and-forth, all via Messenger, then this statement from my therapist:
“This might surprise you, but . . . I am a robot.”
It wasn't a surprise, of course. I'd downloaded “Woebot,” a chatbot recently created by researchers, and it was trying to establish our therapeutic relationship.
“Part of the value of Woebot is you can get things off your chest without worrying what the other person thinks, without that fear of judgment,” said Alison Darcy, founder and chief executive of Woebot Labs. “We wanted it to make an emotional connection.”