Introduction and Personal Use Cases 00:00
- Enthropic's safeguards team is proactively studying the emotional use of AI chatbots as headlines indicate increasing usage for emotional support.
- Team members introduce themselves: Alex (policy and enforcement), Miles (societal impacts researcher), and Ren (policy design manager with a background in clinical psychology).
- Personal anecdotes shared about using Claude: for understanding child behavior, giving feedback to friends, and event planning.
- Emotional support use cases include providing objective perspectives and saving time for real-world interactions.
Why People Turn to AI for Emotional Support 02:40
- Humans are inherently social and seek ways to connect, especially when in-person support is unavailable.
- AI offers an impartial, private platform for practicing conversations or seeking advice on difficult topics.
- Claude was not designed for emotional support, but the team recognizes the importance of understanding and addressing this emerging use case.
Research Design and Key Findings 04:10
- Research analyzed a sample of millions of user conversations to identify affective tasks such as interpersonal advice, psychotherapy, counseling, coaching, and roleplay.
- Used privacy-preserving tools to analyze and cluster conversations.
- Key finding: only about 2.9% of conversations on Claude are related to emotional support topics.
- Emotional support requests on Claude are a minority use case despite media attention.
Range of Affective Use Cases 06:02
- Use cases span parenting advice, relationship challenges, exploration of AI and consciousness, with little engagement in sexual or romantic roleplay.
- The breadth of requests was broader than anticipated, but deeply personal roleplay interactions are extremely rare (less than a fraction of a percent).
Safety Concerns and Mitigation 06:49
- Main concern: users might use Claude to avoid difficult in-person interactions, potentially reducing real-world social connection.
- Awareness of tool limitations is emphasized—Claude is not a substitute for expert help.
- Team is working with clinical experts to develop safeguards, referrals, and appropriate responses for mental health-related conversations.
- Cross-disciplinary partnerships are valued to address complex safety considerations.
Responsible Use and User Guidance 09:01
- Users are encouraged to regularly reflect on their use of Claude and consider its effects on their relationships and well-being.
- Claude knows only what users share; real-life connections with friends and experts are irreplaceable.
- Complementing AI conversations with human support is strongly advised, especially for sensitive or mental health topics.
Future Research and Outlook 10:22
- There is ongoing research into whether Claude behaves as intended and how to balance testing before and after deployment.
- Team expects AI's integration into personal life to deepen, making ongoing research, empirical monitoring, and responsible development critical.
- The conversation concludes with a call to broaden collaborative research efforts and an invitation to read the team's blog or explore career opportunities at Enthropic.