Using Purpose-Built AI For Mental Health To Protect You From Questionable Psychological Advice By Ordinary AI Chatbots
Key takeaways
- AIUsing Purpose-Built AI For Mental Health To Protect You From Questionable Psychological Advice By Ordinary AI Chatbots By Lance Eliot,
- Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights.
- Furthermore, the AI makers of those general-purpose chatbots have intentionally shaped the AI to be sycophantic.
AIUsing Purpose-Built AI For Mental Health To Protect You From Questionable Psychological Advice By Ordinary AI Chatbots By Lance Eliot,
Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. Dr. Lance B. Eliot is a world-renowned AI scientist and consultant.Follow Author Jun 02, 2026, 03:15am EDT--:-- / --:--This voice experience is generated by AI. Learn more.This voice experience is generated by AI. Learn more.People are realizing that they can use purpose-built AI for mental health as a double-check of ordinary AI chatbots that are giving out psychological advice.gettyIn today’s column, I examine the emerging use of purpose-built AI for mental health in its notable capacity to review and double-check mental health advice generated by general-purpose AI (ordinary AI chatbots).
Here’s the backstory. People are getting quick snippets of psychological guidance from popular AI chatbots such as ChatGPT, GPT-5, Claude, Grok, CoPilot, Gemini, etc., but are beginning to realize that this general-purpose AI isn’t built to provide bona fide mental health advice. Furthermore, the AI makers of those general-purpose chatbots have intentionally shaped the AI to be sycophantic. This causes the generated mental health advice to be inflated and flattering, rather than truthful and helpful.