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Mental health conversational agents have the potential to deliver valuable therapeutic impact, but low user engagement remains a critical barrier hindering their efficacy. Existing therapeutic approaches have leveraged clients' internal…
Social media clones are AI-powered social delegates of ourselves created using our personal data. As our identities and online personas intertwine, these technologies have the potential to greatly enhance our social media experience. If…
Mental health concerns are rising globally, prompting increased reliance on technology to address the demand-supply gap in mental health services. In particular, mental health chatbots are emerging as a promising solution, but these remain…
People experiencing severe distress increasingly use Large Language Model (LLM) chatbots as mental health support tools. Discussions on social media have described how engagements were lifesaving for some, but evidence suggests that…
Artificial intelligence chatbots have achieved unprecedented adoption, with millions now using these systems for emotional support and companionship in contexts of widespread social isolation and capacity-constrained mental health services.…
Access to mental health support remains limited, particularly in marginalized communities where structural and cultural barriers hinder timely care. This paper explores the potential of AI-enabled chatbots as a scalable solution, focusing…
The conversational nature of chatbots poses challenges to designers since their development is different from other software and requires investigating new practices in the context of human-AI interaction and their impact on user…
Mental health challenges among Indian adolescents are shaped by unique cultural and systemic barriers, including high social stigma and limited professional support. We report a mixed-methods study of Indian adolescents (survey n=362;…
Chatbots can serve as a viable tool for preliminary depression diagnosis via interactive conversations with potential patients. Nevertheless, the blend of task-oriented and chit-chat in diagnosis-related dialogues necessitates professional…
Personalized support is essential to fulfill individuals' emotional needs and sustain their mental well-being. Large language models (LLMs), with great customization flexibility, hold promises to enable individuals to create their own…
What if users could meet their future selves today? AI-generated future selves simulate meaningful encounters with a digital twin decades in the future. As AI systems advance, combining cloned voices, age-progressed facial rendering, and…
LGBTQ+ individuals are increasingly turning to chatbots powered by large language models (LLMs) to meet their mental health needs. However, little research has explored whether these chatbots can adequately and safely provide tailored…
Amidst the growing interest in developing task-autonomous AI for automated mental health care, this paper addresses the ethical and practical challenges associated with the issue and proposes a structured framework that delineates levels of…
Clinical communication skills are essential for preparing healthcare professionals to provide equitable care across cultures. However, traditional training with simulated patients can be resource intensive and difficult to scale, especially…
Recent advancements in large language models (LLMs) promise to expand mental health interventions by emulating therapeutic techniques, potentially easing barriers to care. Yet there is a lack of real-world empirical evidence evaluating the…
As mental health chatbots proliferate to address the global treatment gap, a critical question emerges: How do we design for relational safety the quality of interaction patterns that unfold across conversations rather than the correctness…
A chatbot's personality design is key to interaction quality. As chatbots evolved from rule-based systems to those powered by large language models (LLMs), evaluating the effectiveness of their personality design has become increasingly…
Previous researches on dialogue system assessment usually focus on the quality evaluation (e.g. fluency, relevance, etc) of responses generated by the chatbots, which are local and technical metrics. For a chatbot which responds to millions…
Dialogue systems, also called chatbots, are now used in a wide range of applications. However, they still have some major weaknesses. One key weakness is that they are typically trained from manually-labeled data and/or written with…
Objective: Domestic abuse cases have risen significantly over the last four years, in part due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the challenges for victims and survivors in accessing support. In this study, we investigate the role that chatbots…