“Before we work on artificial intelligence why don’t we do something about natural stupidity?” (Steve Polyak)

I never intended to use artificial intelligence as a therapist. It just sort of happened. 

It started innocently enough: I asked a simple question about a certain cryptocurrency and why it’s been taking such a nosedive.  Before long, my fingers started to confess, as if they were being interrogated for a crime they didn’t commit.  My innermost thoughts lay exposed in a sterile chat box, revealed to a collection of algorithms. 

And it was surprisingly astute—almost uncannily so at times—with a knack for sorting, analyzing, and making sharp-eyed sense of my verbal monologues. Somewhere between my rambling questions and the computer’s response lies a world of remarkable clarity. I had stumbled upon a gold mine in the form of an electronic Dr. Freud.

Unlike human therapists, it never glances at its watch, interrupts mid-sentence, or bills your co-pay incorrectly. Sigmund behind the screen is ready to discuss, with infinite patience, your childhood trauma, neurotic compulsions, or the obsessive spiral triggered by a text message that should have been ignored hours ago.

AI therapy will delve into the layers of your dilemma like a vegetable mandolin from Williams Sonoma. It offers precision, exceptional insight, and an extraordinary ability to look past surface-level symptoms in search of root causes and the motivations behind your distressing thoughts. It will patiently peel back one layer after another until the problem begins to reveal itself.  The only thing it won’t do is ask, “Tell me more about your mother,” with the same fault-finding confidence a human therapist can summon to help you over the session’s finish line. After one session, you’ll become that coveted dinner guest who can toss around terms like “disenfranchised grief,” “residual shame,” and the “Spotlight Effect” as if Simon & Schuster had just handed you a royalty check.

Is the computer therapist an instant cure for the daily doldrums? Not really. But I have other suggestions for that:  Try dancing around your kitchen in your underwear to “Danke Schoen,” using a zucchini as a mock microphone. Who’s going to shame you? The coffee maker? The toaster oven? Those judgmental avocados that are now overripe and have been sitting in the fruit bowl for a week?

Save that for your next 2am chat stream with Dr. Freud.