From a New York Times guest essay by Barclay Bram headlined “My Therapist, the Robot”:

I first met Woebot, my A.I. chatbot therapist, at the height of the pandemic.

I’m an anthropologist who studies mental health, and I had been doing fieldwork for my Ph.D. in China when news of the coronavirus started spreading. I left during Chinese New Year, and I never made it back. With my research stalled and my life on hold, I moved back in with my parents. Then, in quick succession, I lost a close family member to Covid and went through a painful breakup. I went months without seeing any of my friends. My mental health tanked, as it did for so many.