There is an increasingly common assumption emerging within discussions of artificial intelligence and mental healthcare that if a system can produce coherent, empathic, and psychologically plausible language, it may be approximating something akin to psychotherapy. This assumption deserves careful examination. While large language models can generate remarkably sophisticated linguistic responses, psychotherapy is not reducible to language exchange alone. Human communication, and particularly...

We live in one of the most technologically connected periods in human history, yet many people appear to feel increasingly disconnected from one another in ways that matter profoundly for psychological wellbeing. Loneliness, alienation, and social fragmentation are now recognised as major public health concerns despite unprecedented access to communication technologies, social media, instant messaging, video interaction, and increasingly sophisticated artificial intelligence systems capable...

Artificial intelligence is entering daily life at extraordinary speed, raising an important question: are we integrating technologies that shape human psychology faster than we can understand their consequences? History suggests this is possible. Social media offers a clear precedent. Platforms became deeply embedded in the lives of children and adolescents long before developmental psychology, neuroscience, and public policy fully understood their effects. Only later did research begin to...