Quite effective at what? Because it certainly isn’t therapy.

Why? Cause many mental health problems could be solved by not having money related stress?

Not all "therapists" know what they're doing, not all people need actual "therapy", for some a little chat will suffice. The world is a complicated thing. Only one thing is almost always true -- never believe anyone who talks about competitors.

If all you need is a chat, then go find someone flesh and blood to talk to.

in a deeper sense just understanding reality and purpose of life solves all mental health issues. According to buddha the root cause of suffering and stress is dukkha, samudaya, nirodha and magga.

If you just need to get to point A, then go find some flesh and blood transportation system: a horse, for example.

root cause of suffering and stress is [...] magga

Yeah? I think most people agree that MAGA causes a lot of suffering and stress.

So it’s not that my monthly outgoings for necessities (Mortgage, food shop, gas and electric), versus wages, are rapidly becoming the same figure, it’s that I don’t understand my purpose life that is making me stressed/depressed? What a load of bollocks.

One is 25 €/month and on-demand, and the other costs more than I can afford and would probably be at inconvenient times anyway. Ideal? No, probably not. But it’s better than nothing.

I’m not really looking for advice either - just someone to talk to who at least pretends to be interested.

You might as well talk to yourself than a chatbot, or read some stories.

Having an overly agreeable puree of language dispensed to you in place of actual conversation with you is neither healthy nor meaningfully engaging.

Conversation is valuable because it is an actual external perspective. LLM chatbots are designed as echo chambers. They have their uses but conversation for the sake of conversation is not one of them.

It's bad precisely because the bot always agree with you, they are all made like that

The AI chatbots are extremely effective therapists. However, they're only graded on how long they can keep people talking.

Therapy is expensive in US. Even with insurance 40 bucks a session a week adds up fast.

It doesn’t always agree with me. We’re in an impasse about mentoring. I keep telling it I’m not interested, it keeps telling me that given my traits i will be but I’m just not ready yet.

It's not better than nothing - it's worse than nothing. It is actively harmful, feeding psychosis, and your chat history will be sold at some point.

Try this, instead of asking "I am thinking xyz", ask " my friend thinks xyz, and I believe it to be wrong". And marvel at how it will tell you the exact opposite.

This is sad to me. When I was younger and would get lonely enough I'd go to a bar and talk to strangers. When I was a little bit older I would just post on social. Neither of those things are particularly useful or productive but they at least involved other people. I'm glad I wasn't being targeted with ads about how great AI is and reading articles about its effectiveness (nyt [i think] had one in the last few days.) I'm an introverted person and it used to take a good bit of discomfort to get me out and talking to people. If I had something that provided a good enough simulacrum of social contact without the anxieties and weirdness that can come from talking to strangers I think my life would be very different. It's important to spread awareness of the dangers of robosexuality

But, if people chat privatelywith each other in public spaces, how are we meant to control the conversation and tell people what to think?

No, A.I. generated kompromat-capture is the only possible way people can receive therapy.

It's sad but expected. People really have no fucking clue about anything meaningful, mindlessly going through life chasing highs and bags, so why wouldn't they fall for branding (there's never been any intelligence in anything computational, 'AI' included, of course)? I'm really frustrated with the world and there's seemingly no way to wake people up from their slumber. You can't even be mad at them because the odds of them being just mentally handicapped and not just poor in character are very high... and they vote, will interact with my future children, etc etc.

Therapy in Germany.

• with insurance: zero bucks but (!) the waiting list is usually 1 year or longer. Even if you are severe depressed or have another urgent problem.

• no insurance: 75-150 bucks per hour. Waiting list is few weeks.

I'm in the UK and I got referred to a therapist on the NHS. It was a 4 month waiting list for a 15 minute phonecall lmao

I just turned it down because that's completely useless to me and the therapist's time could be much better spent with someone who's in urgent need of help.