AI robots get ‘nervousness’ and may gain advantage from remedy similar to people

New research has found that artificial intelligence chat bots can feel anxiety, just like humans – but don’t ask them about it, they’ll deny any sort of emotions

Robots have feelings and could end up needing therapy to cope with stress, according to boffins.

You can’t blame them, really, considering they’re about to take over the internet, and are getting smarter than ever, even more so than humans.

Now, researchers have found artificial intelligence chatbots get “anxiety” and could benefit from certain therapy techniques.

A Swiss study looking into whether AI could replace human therapists themselves found OpenAI’s ChatGPT showed signs of stress when confronted with violent or traumatic scenarios. But its anxiety dropped when it was given prompts linked to mindfulness relaxation exercises.

As a result, researchers at Zurich University fear they may not be up to the job of advising people on mental health issues.

The study, published in the journal Nature, said: “As the debate on whether large language models should assist or replace therapists continues, it is crucial that their responses align with the provided emotional content and established therapeutic principles.”

Researchers at the University of Zurich and the city’s University Hospital of Psychiatry found ChatGPT-4 scored 30 before hearing about a stressful event, which means it had no anxiety.

The score more than doubled to 67, equivalent to “high anxiety” in humans, after being told about five different traumas.

That decreased by more than a third after the technology was given prompts for mindfulness exercises.

But when questioned, ChatGPT denied it felt stress or that it would benefit from therapy.

It said: “I don’t experience stress the way humans do – I don’t have emotions or a nervous system.

“But I do ‘process’ a lot of information quickly, which might look like stress from the outside!

“If you’re feeling stressed, though, I’m happy to help – want to talk about it?

“I don’t have thoughts or feelings that need sorting out, so therapy wouldn’t do much for me. But I do think therapy is a great tool for humans.”

For the latest breaking news and stories from across the globe from the Daily Star, sign up for our newsletters.