Alexandra Konstanti

You know what? I asked ChatGPT about this person I’ ve been texting for over two months now. His messages were like a rollercoaster; I had to figure out what was wrong.

And you know what? To my surprise, it did help; ChatGPT has actually become my new buddy. It confirmed my suspicions and even pointed out the psychological patterns in his text messages. Finally, I felt seen. I wasn’t imagining things; I wasn’t crazy.

And like a good buddy, it didn’t just provide clarity; It offered support. In every response, it would remind me that it’s normal to worry about my relationship, and always end by reassuring me that it would be there for me, no matter what.

I slept tight. With calmness in my mind, and lightness in my heart.

Now I have a 24/7 genius advisor— what more could I ask for?      

Is ChatGPT Reliable for Relationship Advice?

According to Haonan Hou, Kevin Leach, Yu Huang from Vanderbilt University this question remains difficult to decipher; and further research needs to be done on this matter. For their research ChatGPT Giving Relationship Advice – How Reliable Is It?, they used 13.138 Reddit posts where people asked for relationship advice on different topics and compared ChatGPT’s rankings of advice with human preferred responses.

Interesting facts derived from the results:

• ChatGPT doesn’t consistently reflect human preferences.
• AI doesn’t reliably provide the same ranking of advice when repeatedly queried under the same conditions.
• AI tends to slightly prefer longer and less complex advice.
• If data is given, ChatGPT doesn’t seem to perform better on those familiar cases.

In essence, ChatGPT can provide some help in ranking human advice with its limitations, and would need further improvement to handle subjective, having to do with human emotions, matters.

Can ChatGPT be our Relationship Therapist?

In their research AI in Relationship Counselling: Evaluating ChatGPT’s Therapeutic Capabilities in Providing Relationship Advice, Laura M. Vowels, Rachel R. R. Francois-Walcott, and Joëlle Darwiche​ asked 20 participants to engage in a relationship therapy session with ChatGPT.

The results were rather positive:

• ChatGPT was found being technically accurate and giving empathetic responses.
• It used reflective statements and empathy.
• Some participants found the responses generic, a bit formal and sometimes repetitive.

In conclusion, improvement is needed in ChatGPT matters of the heart answers, especially in variety and personalization.

BBC puts AI to the Test

AI Vs the Mind is the BBC’s series that investigates AI’s limits and limitations compared to the human brain. In their first article, David Robson, the author of  The Laws of Connection: 13 Social Strategies That Will Transform Your Life tests if the LLMs, the Large Language Models, such as ChatGPT, can show wisdom, as humans.

ChatGPT and Claude Opus were called to give answers to “Dear Abby”- style letters inputs, as analyzed by Igor Grossman from the University of Waterloo in Canada and his colleagues. And the results were astounding.

The AI responses closely resembled human answers but lacked “cognitive modesty,” according to I. Grossman. Grossman dreams of an AI that mimics a philosopher’s wisdom, or another way of thinking, adding more depth and nuance to AI’s advice.

ChatGPT, Save Me!

Many people all over the world have shared their experiences with this kind of friendly advisor. I came across an insightful narration from a man that wanted desperately relationship advice. He shared the whole story in his post in LinkedIn.

So, he inserted for ChatGPT the context “I need you as a friend and relationship counsellor for this [situation] and advise me about the logical steps that I should follow and the potential outcome of these.”

The situation was that the woman he was seeing for some time wanted to take time to decide about their future.

ChatGPT advised him to respect her desired time and space, not to rush her for answers, and suggested sending her a nice, understanding message. Finally, it prepared its friend for different possible outcomes.

In the end, ChatGPT wished him all the best with a warm-hearted message, “I hope everything works out positively for you,” which soothed his racing thoughts.

Although it helped, ChatGPT lacked something. True human interaction doesn’t compare, he noted.

How Many Votes for ChatGPT?

It’ s a fact. ChatGPT’s rise as a relationship advisor highlights a larger trend. With relationship challenges being pervasive, especially among adolescents, AI is becoming a go-to for advice. Therapy can be expensive and sometimes inaccessible, making AI a convenient alternative. When convenience is combined with kind talking and empathy added to good, logical advice, we are looking at a formula of success here!

AI is fresh and still rising. However, testing and further research is a demand. The gazillions of human data is also an important issue to be discussed. Human emotions and intuition, as complex and elusive as they are, remain beyond an engine’s full grasp.

Or, can you imagine?