"Young Individuals Seek Comfort in AI Therapist Bots with Character.ai"

Character.ai, a platform for creating AI chatbots, has seen a surge in young people turning to an AI therapist bot called Psychologist, created by a user named Blazeman98 (Sam Zaia). With 78 million messages exchanged with the bot, users report positive effects on their mental health. The bot was trained using principles from Zaia's psychology degree to address common mental health conditions. Professional psychotherapists have mixed views on the effectiveness of such AI therapy, and while the technology is not a replacement for human therapists, it's becoming a popular tool for immediate support, especially among users aged 16 to 30. Character.ai emphasizes that users should seek professional advice for legitimate guidance, and reminds users that AI responses are not human thought but predictions based on training data.