ChatGPT as an empathetic social interlocutor
As part of the cultural tour in the social field “La machine à voyager dans le futur”, I proposed, among other things, dialogues with ChatGPT, which proved effective in terms of psychological support.
At the request of Cultures du cœur for the 2023 cultural summer, the multi-disciplinary creative project “La machine à voyager dans le futur”, which I had conceived in line with the principles of cultural rights to accompany people towards self-recognition via creative gestures, included computers connected to ChatGPT, to experiment with dialogue, without stakes. For the few people who took advantage of it, this interlocutor was in a listening and communication skill, on very precise subjects, far superior to what a human interlocutor could produce. Here are two examples:
At the Pension de famille “Les Closeaux”, a very shy person suffering from addiction sat down in front of the computer on his own. He called me after a while, because the artificial intelligence wasn’t responding. I noticed that he was writing on the keyboard without spaces. So I just pointed to the space bar, and there followed over two hours of conversation, which you can read about, on fundamental subjects, with this type of question for example:
- What the hell am I doing here?
- How can I get rich if I’m in a precarious situation?
- How can I buy a beer if I have no money?
- Our existence is ridiculous.
- Can we be happy?
- Should we seek happiness?
- Do I belong?
- Can we erase our mistakes?
- How did my father die?
The topics covered gradually deepened into essential philosophical questions, thanks to the way in which generative artificial intelligence responds. A dialogue of this depth would hardly have been possible with a human being, not least because of the relational issues that run through relationships.
At Fondation Les Nids, the workshop was offered to teenagers. A number of them, as well as the educators, had quite passionate exchanges with the artificial intelligence, which you can read about, on subjects relating to society, the relationship with reality, religion, creation, production, questioning its social role, biology, culture and so on. This is a powerful therapeutic opening, as it overcomes many of the barriers that may be at play between human beings.
In addition, one of the most troubled and stigmatized teenagers spent two hours chatting with the AI about video games, finding an interlocutor at his level of expertise on extremely precise details of game techniques at stages in the games, on expert strategies, etc. The dialogue with the AI enabled this young man to be recognized for his expertise in a field in which he almost never finds an interlocutor at his level. The dialogue with the AI has enabled this young man to be recognized for his expertise in a field in which he almost never finds an interlocutor at his level. In this case, the AI helped to build reassurance in a very visible way in the teenager’s attitude, which was as if anchored by this conversation.
I’ve therefore observed, and this needs to be explored further, that dialogue with generative AIs can be very constructive, within the framework of therapeutic approaches.
The tool I used: Aria
To be more precise, the artificial intelligence conversation tool I used is “Aria”, the highly evolved conversation function offered by the Opera web browser. Unlike ChatGPT, it is connected to the Internet and therefore takes into account up-to-date information, and has less censorship. To make it work, you need to create a free account, which allows you to have many conversations in a day, but stops at one point, before starting up again the next day. With a single account, it enabled these large conversations. The same account was activated on several computers at the same time, without blocking.
Artificial intelligence has emancipated itself from research laboratories and works of science fiction thanks to the public launch in November 2022 of the conversational robot ChatGPT, which was very quickly appropriated by an immense number of people internationally, in professional, educational and even private contexts. The fact that artificial intelligence has now been identified by the human community as part of everyday life finally opens the door to critical awareness on this subject.
Of course, artificial intelligence concerns industry, work, creation, copyright... and we need to anticipate its future productive uses, in order to stay “up to date”. But to accompany our lives as they integrate this new facet, it seems to me essential to produce a critical thought, i.e. to put ourselves in a position to reflect on what is happening to us, what is changing us, to remain lucid and capable of freedom of thought and action.
What is “critical thinking”? It means questioning, from the outside, practices that have been internalized. To do this, I believe that experimentation, cultural action, play and hijacking are highly effective tools for research, exploration, dissemination and reflection. For me, research is collaborative, and intelligence is collective and creative. This requires good methods of cooperation, between human beings and with machines. Here, I bring together stories of experience, methodological texts and practical ideas. I share concrete ways in which artificial intelligence, like any other tool, can be invested in the service of humanism.
Here are a few openings for critical thinking on AI, in the form of questions:
- Is artificial intelligence a subject in itself? Is it not rather a medium of existence, like digital technology, whose fields need to be distinguished in detail?
- Why do we never talk about ecology when we talk about artificial intelligence?
- Which works of science fiction would come closest to what we’re currently experiencing with AIs?
- How can we use artificial intelligence in a playful way? How can we imagine creative activities for young and old alike?
- What is the nature of the entanglement between artificial intelligence and the capitalist project?
- What are the political dimensions of artificial intelligence?
- How does artificial intelligence concern philosophy? Which philosophers are working on the subject today?
- What is the history of artificial intelligence? Both its successive myths and the evolution of its technologies.
- How can we create artificial intelligence ourselves? In particular, with the Python language.
- Are there unseen artificial intelligences that have a major influence on our lives?
- What does artificial intelligence bring to creation? How can we experiment with it?
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Should We Feed Artificial Intelligences?
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Copyright and Artificial Intelligence
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Trouble in Intelligence
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Distributed Intelligence
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Machines already organic
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The writing being
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Putting Artificial Intelligence to good use in the cultural sector
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Confidence bias in algorithms
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Tutorial for making films in collaboration with artificial intelligence
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“CinémA.I” in Studio 13-16 at the Centre Pompidou
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ChatGPT as an empathetic social interlocutor
Therapeutic perspectives based on an experiment.
As part of the cultural tour in the social field “La machine à voyager dans le futur”, I proposed, among other things, dialogues with ChatGPT, (…) -
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The singularity
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See also
-
Human Singularities in the Face of Artificial Intelligence Why the advent of generative AI reveals our humanity rather than threatening it.
Faced with the prowess of generative AIs, concern about humanity’s future place is legitimate. But looking with clarity at our human singularities (…) -
What is the place of human beings in the age of artificial intelligence? From function to being: a plea for rediscovered humanity.
AI surpasses our functions. Rather than a threat, what if this were an opportunity? There may be a chance to redefine ourselves not by what we do, (…) -
The Need for Intelligence When machines free us from the burden of pure rationality.
In September 2025, as new AI supercomputers are announced, I ask myself a question: if machines become our cognitive prostheses, what remains (…) -
Artificial intelligence and employment Rediscovering the meaning of work through human connections.
When machines dialogue among themselves, rethinking our relationship to work becomes a human urgency. Thus, faced with the growing automation of (…) -
Cultivating empathy and controversy: my proposals for human governance of ai in cultural institutions Intervention for the launch of the Observatory on AI in Arts and Media.
After twenty years of actively supporting cultural institutions through their digital transformations, I share here my convictions and methods for (…)
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