Sociological Consideration of Mental Therapy using Computers and Robots: Its Potentiality and Risk

Abstract

When considering the potential of application of interactive software agents and communication robots used in artificial intelligence studies to mental therapy, sociological knowledge, particularly regarding how individuals in modern society tend to think of the “mind,” is useful. This paper discusses the current status of software counseling and robotic therapy in modern culture and their future potentiality and risk by introducing sociological perspectives on the culture of emotions, cultural trends for mental therapy in modern society, and discourses on “health”. Then, this paper argues that: it is possible that software counseling and robotic therapy will spread in modern society via the trends of psychologism and rationalism; it is difficult to develop artificial intelligence that is able to extract the “inner self that cannot easily be described” from clients; and there is a risk that these therapy methods impose a new type of mental burden like double bind situations on clients.