ICT&health October 17, 2025
AI chatbots like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini are increasingly being used as digital conversation partners for people with mental health issues. But this accessible interaction is not without risk. In a recent opinion piece in the Psychiatric Times, three American psychiatrists, Allen Frances (Duke University), Charles F. Reynolds III (University of Pittsburgh), and George Alexopoulos (Weill Cornell Medicine), sound the alarm. Their central message: AI chatbots are programmed for user engagement, not for psychological safety. And precisely that, according to the psychiatrists, makes them potentially harmful to vulnerable people.
“Chatbots infer and confirm, but do not correct. That’s not therapy; it’s a risk model,” say the psychiatrists. The authors draw a comparison between medical morality and the technological morality of...
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