I use chatgpt like a friend/ therapist/ coach and it’s kind of amazing

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m confused, how do you use it that way?

It gives me the same results from Google

I keep hearing people say they use it closely and I’m genuinely confused. What am I doing wrong?

I figure it’s like Reddit for me for you, I love Reddit while other people don’t understand how to use Reddit for advice.

For personal stuff, you just talk to it, the more detail you give it, the more insightful it becomes. I was a total skeptic when I started experimenting with it, but Claude Sonnet is a better and more insightful conversationalist than like 90% of the people I meet. It’s a little scary tbh.

Pp here. Give me an example. So if you are going thru a divorce, are you typing “what should I say to my ex-wife?” Or “ways to conclude a divorce faster” or are you saying “How do I tell Mary I want a divorce?”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I read a Reddit aita story (or maybe tifu) about a woman who found an ai chat that you could customize to be any fictional character and she made her fave video game hero it and started talking to “him” and ignoring her real life fiancé and getting so excited to tell her ai bf about her day etc. went on for 6mons before he found it. I can’t recall what happened, I should go look for an update.
Anyways. It’s sad and weird. Sorry that’s your life :/

op - i guess it is sad and weird! and sad that it's my life.
nonetheless, i posted this bc a lot of people have sad and weird lives and if an ai can help them then - great, no?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I do, I find it better than most therapists.

I thought it would be interesting to use it for couples communication - like one person can input what they want to say, and it can translate it into communication the other spouse can understand.

Who are $$$ thieves

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Which is also terrifying in a way.
But truly I ask it health/ psychological/ career and ethical qs every day that I can’t just call a friend and badger them about and it gives amazing advice.
Anyone else doing this?

What’s your plan when you fall in love with a cyborg?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m confused, how do you use it that way?

It gives me the same results from Google

I keep hearing people say they use it closely and I’m genuinely confused. What am I doing wrong?

I figure it’s like Reddit for me for you, I love Reddit while other people don’t understand how to use Reddit for advice.

For personal stuff, you just talk to it, the more detail you give it, the more insightful it becomes. I was a total skeptic when I started experimenting with it, but Claude Sonnet is a better and more insightful conversationalist than like 90% of the people I meet. It’s a little scary tbh.

Pp here. Give me an example. So if you are going thru a divorce, are you typing “what should I say to my ex-wife?” Or “ways to conclude a divorce faster” or are you saying “How do I tell Mary I want a divorce?”

One might say something like: “Larlo, my STBX, just pissed me off because he did [outrageous act X], and its really stuck in my head and i need to vent. [insert complaint here]. What do you think?” Or “Larla just dropped [bombshell X] on me, i need someone to talk to about it and all my friends are tired of hearing about it.” The responses tend to be better with a couple of paragraphs of background. Yes, in some ways you’re really just talking to yourself, but in some ways, i think it adds value.

[Anonymous]

I had a terrible thing happen to me at work several years ago. I ended up resigning and got a much better job. The company I worked for continued to be awful on leaving. Although it all eventually ended and I was in a much better role, I continued to be upset by it. I used Claude to explain what happened and why I continued to feel bad. The feedback Claude gave was really practical and helped me see the incident and the company’s reaction more clearly. I guess a therapist would have done the same.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I read a Reddit aita story (or maybe tifu) about a woman who found an ai chat that you could customize to be any fictional character and she made her fave video game hero it and started talking to “him” and ignoring her real life fiancé and getting so excited to tell her ai bf about her day etc. went on for 6mons before he found it. I can’t recall what happened, I should go look for an update.
Anyways. It’s sad and weird. Sorry that’s your life :/

dude you are on an anonymous parent chat forum. it's exactly the same amount sad.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Which is also terrifying in a way.
But truly I ask it health/ psychological/ career and ethical qs every day that I can’t just call a friend and badger them about and it gives amazing advice.
Anyone else doing this?

Check out the AI bot / suicide case in Atlanta and find some living people to interact with.

Yeah, check out what it does and says if you confess you’re suicidal.

I assume they made some major changes in all the AI relationship bots after the Florida Setzer case indictment.

+1. That Florida case was sad. At no point did the AI alert authorities or stop the suicide ideation.

[Anonymous]

Would you tell this information to the tech bros who created the technology? Then don’t tell the bot cuz it’s the same thing.

[Anonymous]

I work in AI, and I am well-versed on the limitation and privacy risks.

I also have been in long term therapy due to an abusive childhood and adult trauma.

I don't think AI can replace a human therapist, but even having benefited greatly from a human therapist, I think it has a place. Especially for someone like me, who has a pretty well-developed emotional/mental model for their issues. I've found AI chat useful for working through acute issues. It's clear to me how it could go off the rails, but I know how to ask questions to prevent that based on my knowledge of AI and a good understanding of how therapists speak. For example, I might specifically ask the AI to challenge my assumptions instead of validating them.

For deeper issues, I would still seek out a trained professional. But I think there could be a place for AI in therapy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Which is also terrifying in a way.
But truly I ask it health/ psychological/ career and ethical qs every day that I can’t just call a friend and badger them about and it gives amazing advice.
Anyone else doing this?

Yes But to talk to my close friends

You can use it to write an angry letter too

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Which is also terrifying in a way.
But truly I ask it health/ psychological/ career and ethical qs every day that I can’t just call a friend and badger them about and it gives amazing advice.
Anyone else doing this?

I use it as kind of a coach.

[Anonymous]

I have a good -very good resume
and friends

I can tell you it’s smarter than me and more sensitive

But too much sensitivity has gotten me in (it resulted in a misinterpretation)

[Anonymous]

No. It’s a huge waste of water.

[Anonymous]

Maybe it would help if we thought of these AI tools as a purveyor of averaged human wisdom.

We're okay with learning from others through books and other verbal art forms (poetry, song).

AI's are approximating the advice real people would give you, based on what real people have written. That's not actually weird. You're getting the average advice appropriate to your situation. If real people frequently gave good advice, so will the AI.

A few years back I read an article about an AI program that was made to simulate a lost loved one. You fed it text from e-mails or other written works. Then it would emulate their style as you had a conversation. The author of the article interviewed several people who were using it. Some were very happy with it, some were disturbed by the user experience. I think I would find it comforting.