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The psychbot will see you now

The internet now has its own shrink. linton chiswick lies on the couch

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Meet MindMentor, the Internet's first virtual mental health professional, or 'psychbot'. It's the work of two Dutch clinical psychologists sharing a special interest in Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) and artificial intelligence. After years of testing it's available now, for a comparatively reasonable 4.95Euros per 60-minute session. Skeptical? Me too.

MindMentor's creators claim to have tested the service on 1,600 patients from all over the English-speaking world who gave it a 'satisfaction' rate of

 

47% after just one session, which compares favourably to conventional therapy. The developers don't recommend MindMentor for serious psychological problems or addictions, but are aiming it at the softcore troubled - the people you see browsing the self-help bookshelves to cure

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their stress, improve relationships, achieve life goals.

But what's really interesting about MindMentor - from a technological point of view - is that not only does it operate without human intervention but also doesn't use a database like so much crude AI. In other

 

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