Highly credentialed mental health providers often hear from skeptics that clients would be just as well off engaging in conversations with their hairdresser, bartender, clergy, friends, family, or Uber driver. We need to acknowledge that most of the time, there is a kernel of truth to this. “Most of the time” is not nearly enough. Not even close. The expertise lies in being able to address the minority of presenting problems that require extraordinarily high levels of training. Even more important is the expert judgment required to assess and determine what is routine and simple, and what requires intensive training and proficiency. Now we have large language models (LLMs; e.g., ChatGPT) serving as therapists. Conceptually, LLMs can be effective adjuncts to psychologists. But in reality, this is profoundly problematic.

Nearly all professions with nascent human-replacing technologies are like this. Most of family medicine involves the advice to lose weight, get more sleep, watch symptoms carefully, cut alcohol use, and other chestnuts that any........

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