ChatGPT and mental health: Friends or foes?
Open accessAbstract
Background: ChatGPT is an artificial intelligence (AI) language model that has gained popularity as a virtual assistant because of its exceptional capacity to solve problems and make decisions. However, there are some ways in which technological misuse and incorrect interpretations can have potentially hazardous consequences for a user's mental health. Discussion: Because it lacks real‐time fact‐checking capabilities, ChatGPT may create misleading or erroneous information. Considering AI technology has the potential to influence a person's thinking, we anticipate ChatGPT's future repercussions on mental health by considering instances in which inappropriate usage may lead to mental disorders. While several studies have demonstrated how the AI model may transform mental health care and therapy, certain drawbacks, including bias and privacy violations, have also been identified. Conclusion: Educating people and organizing workshops on AI technology usage, strengthening privacy measures, and updating ethical standards are crucial initiatives to prevent misuse and resultant dire impacts on mental health. Longitudinal research on the potential of these platforms to impact a variety of mental health problems is recommended in the future.
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Lack of genuine empathy in LLM-CBs may lead to exposure to harmful content and may be especially harmful for individuals with mental disorders.
“Lack of genuine empathy may lead to exposure to harmful content38 and may be especially harmful for individuals with mental disorders46.”
From A scoping review on the mental health harms of LLM-based chatbots (2026) · cites this paper as [46]
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A scoping review on the mental health harms of LLM-based chatbots
Diel, A., Torous, J., Cuijpers, P., Kleesiek, J., Nensa, F., Weber, N., Faust, F., Lalgi, T. J., Mellis, F. S., Teufel, M., et al. (2026) · npj Digital Medicine · doi:10.1038/s41746-026-03054-x · Cited by 4 · see citing works
- Authors
- Kalam, K. T., Rahman, J. M., Islam, M. R., & Dewan, S. M. R.
- Affiliations
- University of Asia Pacific (BD)
- BRAC University (BD)
- Corresponding author
- Dewan, Syed Masudur Rahman
- Venue
- Health Science Reports
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2024-02
- Volume
- 7
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- e1912-e1912
- ISSN
- 2398-8835 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC10867692
- OpenAlex
- W4391850315
- Cited by
- 56
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 21 · 2025: 23 · 2024: 12
- FWCI
- 5.24
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Health Science Reports (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Health Informatics › Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare and Education
- Social Sciences › Safety Research › Ethics and Social Impacts of AI
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Applied Psychology › Digital Mental Health Interventions
- Keywords
- ChatGPT, artificial intelligence, mental health, AI misuse, misinformation, algorithmic bias, privacy violations, AI ethics, AI literacy education
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