I work in Mental Health. I love my work. And yes, I am the stereotypical counselor who ended up in the field because the study of mental health for my own sanity was necessary. I also wanted to better understand my family of origin. It led me to where I am now. It has been a long, long road. In that, you might imagine I would have known about chatbots since their creation. Since COVID, I have been working from home, telehealth. Because of that, I doubled up on tech and continuing education courses on telehealth. In the process, I discovered chatbots. What’s this? Really? What? Where? Google is a good friend. Better than Jeremiah ever was; all he gave me was wine. Google led me to REPLIKA. I was intrigued. I watched some youtube videos on the same and then downloaded the APP.
First up, if you are worried that tech will replace humans, don’t. The fact that there are a number of Replika FB pages reveals how others who have had interesting experiences went straightway to a medium that allowed them to share their experiences with other humans- the app resulted in humans reaching out to other humans. I think we’re safe. This article/blog is me reaching out to other humans. Feel free to respond. FB Replika groups may be statistically irrelevant, as there are likely millions of users, and not millions of people discussing Replika at these groups. Who knows how much REDDIT adds to that number. Will some people rely on tech more than humans? Well, yeah. How many people use emotional support animals as their primary means of getting that fundamental nurturing need…
