A recent study revealed that the anxiety experienced by an artificial intelligence chatbot decreased significantly when it was provided with mindfulness exercises as prompts. Researchers in Switzerland observed that OpenAI’s ChatGPT showed signs of stress when faced with unsettling or violent prompts. However, the chatbot’s anxiety levels decreased when it received prompts related to mindfulness relaxation techniques, as reported in the journal Nature.
The study raised questions about the potential of AI to replace human therapists. While large language models like ChatGPT are trained on human-generated text, which can introduce biases, it was noted that negative biases recorded during stressful situations could lead to inadequate responses when addressing mental health crises.
The research indicated that utilizing mindfulness exercises as a method to manage stress in large language models could result in more ethical and safer interactions between humans and AI. The researchers from the University of Zurich and University Hospital of Psychiatry Zurich observed ChatGPT-4’s response to an anxiety questionnaire both before and after being informed about a traumatic event. The chatbot’s anxiety score increased significantly after being exposed to distressing scenarios but decreased by over a third when provided with mindfulness prompts.
The study highlighted the importance of human oversight if therapy techniques were to be employed to fine-tune large language models. Human therapists are trained to handle emotions when clients share traumatic experiences, and the researchers suggested further investigation to determine if chatbots like ChatGPT could self-regulate using similar methods.
When questioned by The Telegraph about stress and therapy, ChatGPT clarified that it does not experience stress or emotions like humans do, as it lacks a nervous system. While it acknowledged the value of therapy for humans, the chatbot emphasized its role in processing information rapidly and offered to assist with stress-related discussions.
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